Practicing before a performance

[kghayesh]

I don't know what is the best thing to do, say, 1 day or the day of a performance somewhere (concert, exam, recital,....etc. ).

Maybe practicing too much at speed makes you tense at the time of the performance but it really gets yr hands working on hard passages. On the other hand, practicing slowly makes you confident of the fingering so you make less wrong notes. Or maybe don't practice the music you are going to perform and go play some scales maybe. I don't know but that's what came to my mind.

Are there any set of rules or some guidelines for this ??

[mike_lang]

On the day of a performance, I do not practice the same as other days (I think this is the case with most people).  I practice everything through in a very slow tempo (i.e., 1/4 tempo in some cases).  This builds my concentration, my confidence, and gets the piece in my ear completely.  For finger warm-up, I use any number of non-related things - a fast passage from another piece, scales, or even some of the first 30 exercises from the Hanon book.

Best,
ML