It’s spring, and with spring come music recitals, concerts, and performances. My studio recital is in just a few days. I love watching my students perform and show off their hard work and progress. I don’t require participation, but I strongly encourage it. I find it to be an almost indispensable part of the learning process.
Here are a few of the reasons I feel strongly about providing performance opportunities for my studio:
Music is both a shared experience and a personal one. Music is a language, and as such, it communicates. When I practice or play for my own enjoyment, I allow music to communicate to my soul. And it does. It can bring me joy. It can bring me peace. It can calm my frayed nerves. Sometimes, it wakes up my mind and helps me to be creative. The benefits from my music that I receive personally are endless.
There is more that music can do. If I only let music communicate to me personally, I am missing an essential element of its power. If I allow it, it can create a conversation with others. Even as it is speaking to my soul, it can also be speaking to others in the room. I don’t need to speak to them because my music is saying everything that needs to be said.
By performing music, I am sharing a part of myself with others. This is one of the most human things we can do: share ourselves, in whatever way, with those around us. I have long felt like I have a responsibility to radiate light to the world. Music is one way to do that. Good music draws people out of themselves and toward others, toward light, toward a shared experience.
On a less philosophical level, a recital is a great way to showcase a student’s hard work! It is something to work toward, to inspire new goals and plans. An upcoming performance can motivate me to practice like almost nothing else can. Students feel a sense of anticipation as they work toward the accomplishment, and there is such a sense of pride afterward! Parents and other family members love to see the progression from one performance to the next.
For these and many other reasons, performances are an essential, positive addition to any course of music study. I challenge you to find opportunities to perform as often as possible to stretch yourself as a musician.
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