by Carolyn Stanton

Student Learns to Set Goals: The student learns how to set goals and accomplish them. Goal setting is an incredible skill that will serve your student for the rest of their life. Having the ability to set reasonable goals and see them come to fruition helps build confidence, renew enthusiasm in their musical endeavors, and maintain motivation in practicing.
Student Develops Confidence: The student learns how to develop more confidence at each recital, by gaining a sense of accomplishment in obtaining a difficult goal. Being comfortable in front of an audience in a musical setting prepares your child for all future scenarios in which they would need to be in front of an audience, like school presentations or speeches.
Motivation: ****Recitals provide a motivation to practice more. ****With a set date and a specific song selection, recitals give students a sense of urgency and help students learn to manage practice time, problem-solve, and how to perfect a piece.
Focus and Concentration: The student learns how to focus better and improve concentration by having to block out extraneous audience noise when trying to perform, which one doesn't do in a lesson.
Student Learns How to Handle Mistakes/Failure: If a student makes mistakes during a recital, they learn how to deal with it. Mistakes are an inevitable part of making music, no matter how good you are! If students practice playing through a mistake, they eventually learn it is not the end of the world, learn to recover and move on. It is said that for every world-renowned performer that you see on a stage, they have "bombed" at least 100 times before achieving their success.
Student Can Compare Self to Others: The students also have an opportunity to hear other students perform, and perhaps be inspired to learn new pieces. They can hear the beginning students and reflect on how far they have come, and listen to more advanced students and aspire to attain their level. They learn to develop good listening skills.
Shows Improvement: Students who perform in multiple recitals a year show their parents their improvement, and they can also compare their improvement to other students whom they have heard in the recitals. This creates a feeling of pride and accomplishment.
Feeling of Belonging: Private music lessons and practicing by yourself are usually pretty lonely. Gathering together with other students and sharing music helps to build community within a school and gives students a feeling of belonging. For example, my daughter and son bonded with and still keep in touch with the other students who studied piano with them at the same time – 12 years later.

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On How I Teach

What to Expect

I won’t be a good match for you if…

Some Musings as a Teaching Musician

Dear New (and Continuing) Student,

Why Recitals are So Important

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