8 Reasons to Participate in Recitals and Open Mic Nights

In case you haven’t heard, Lessonface has several upcoming performance opportunities open to all members of our community. Recitals will be December 3rd and 7th, and you can sign up here. We expect these will feature primarily younger students (children and teens), but any age is welcome. Open mic nights will be held January 16th and 19th and are for absolutely anyone who would like to participate -- young, old, experienced, beginner, any instrument, any style. Teachers, too, are encouraged to sign up!

We hope the performances will be fun and interesting for both participants and audience. In addition to fun, all music students can learn and grow from sharing their music.  Here are some of the benefits you can expect:

1.  Performances are excellent motivators.  

When we’re our own primary audience, it’s easy to be satisfied playing our piece well once or twice, even if we know it doesn’t come out that way every time.  Even playing for your teacher in lessons becomes routine after a while. Having a recital to work towards brings a fresh sense of purpose and motivation to your playing and practice habits.

2.  You’ll learn new practice skills and develop new approaches to problem-solving. 

To polish a piece and get it ready for performance, we need to bring it to 150% of our potential. We don’t do that by repetition alone. There are lots of tips and tricks for fine-tuning a piece (check out some of them in this article). Every new approach holds a musical lesson to be learned and serves as a tool for resolving certain kinds of issues.

3. You’ll learn different ways of thinking about music.  

Many students, for example, are overly reliant on muscle memory. If you can only start playing a piece at the beginning, or if an error or memory slip derails you completely, this probably applies to you. When we are bringing a piece to performance standards, we also develop our aural memory (of how the piece sounds), conceptual memory (understanding the structure, harmony, and musical language in a piece), and visual memory (how the piece looks on the page and under our fingers). Those extra dimensions develop our understanding of music and help us turn lots of tiny details into one big idea.

4. You’ll learn how to operate in "performance mode."

It would be nice to play a piece flawlessly in a recital. In reality, we’re only human. Strange things can happen under pressure, and we have to prepare for the unexpected. Luckily, audiences are very forgiving of wrong notes. As long as we keep the rhythm moving, they usually don’t even notice. In preparing for a recital, we cultivate what I call a "performance mode" mindset. In "performance mode," we keep the rhythm and the big picture flowing no matter what happens. If handled correctly, there is really no single mistake that can ruin a heartfelt performance. The only real error is letting a mistake get under our skin and distract us from the remainder of the piece.  

5. You’ll sharpen your interpetation skills.

If you’ve chosen to learn a piece, you probably already love it. Just having the notes come out from your own fingers might be fun and satisfying enough for your own purposes. When we play for an audience, we need to teach them how to love it as much as we do. Since the music is not as familiar to them, we need to emphasize and exaggerate what makes it great. That’s where interpretation comes in. In learning to communicate the music’s highs, lows, builds, contrasts, and surprises, we sharpen our control of phrasing, dynamics, and other interpretive skills.

6. You’ll connect with your peers.  

It’s immensely helpful to hear other amateur musicians share what they’re working on. It helps you see how unique every individual’s musical journey is. Seeing beginning students play reminds you where you started and how far you’ve progressed. When you hear a student more advanced than you, you can get a glimpse of your ‘next step’ in the not-so-distant future. You can likewise get ideas and inspiration for repertoire and styles you’d like to explore.  

7. Your family and friends want to hear you play.   

Music is a really exciting passion to be able to share. If you dedicate a lot of your free time to music, and if your family and friends encourage and support your pursuit, it’s really nice to be able to show off the fruits of your labor. 

8. It’s really fun!  

Performances are hard work to prepare for, but the results are well worth it. It feels great to share your music with the world, and you’ll be surprised and encouraged by all the positive feedback you receive. Even if the act of performing is more nerve-wracking than fun (this happens sometimes, but not always), don’t worry - your performance high will be waiting for you after you finish.  

Recitals make demands on your musicianship that ordinary practice doesn’t. We become more aware of every movement and detail. We learn how to continue playing even when things go wrong. And we learn how to communicate what we love about the music we’re performing in a way that makes the audience understand and love it too. 

This article has been adapted from an earlier post in Lessonface’s Forum.  We’d love to hear from both students and teachers about their own thoughts and experiences with recitals and open mic nights.  Students, have you played in a recital or open mic night before? What was it like? Did you learn anything surprising about yourself, your music, or playing in public?  Teachers, in what other ways can students grow from sharing their music? Comment below or on the original forum post here.