The efforts of performing?

[smiggy]

Hey, I'm Josh; pretty new to the forum.

Later in my life, I would love to have a go at like performing in a concert or something. Now, I have little knowledge of what it takes to become a concert pianist and how much time/effort you have to put in. People have said like 9 hours a day, if that's the case, how do you make money while you are practising? Also, what do you do if you make a mistake when performing? Do you stop apologise and continue or do you practise ecceptionally hard until you can play the piece blindfolded?
Can someone fill me in a bit please...

Cheers, Josh

[pianistimo]

Hi, Josh.  People don't realize, when in school, that they can major in two or three things at once and continue to do them outside school.  This puts you in good stead if one or two of those things folds up for a while - or if you become injured (unless you only major in piano and plan to never be injured - or take out insurance policies on your hands). 

I like your idea of continuing with web development, teaching english, and practicing on the weekends and in the evening during the week.  Then, you can literally do all three.  Start out by taking from a teacher at your local uni - and find out about master classes.  There, you can start performing and feeling what it is like to perform weekly.  Also, it gives you motivation to really practice that week.  Most students don't like to embarrass themselves on purpose.  By the end of the year, your brain will have improved memory for other things besides music - and it serves a cross purpose in that all these things can work together.

Seems this is the way it is for vocalists, too.  Not everyone is going to be a superstar.  There are a lot of 'casual' singers in a Master Chorale, that practice very very hard but perform for fun and for free most of the time.  Piano has been this way for me - a way to share.  You can perform for friends, gigs, fund raisers, retirement homes, and things like that - and be almost as fully satisfied as a concert artist doing tours and practicing 9 (or less, i guess) - hours a day.  And, you're less likely to get the typical hand/arm injuries from overpractice.  That's another good thing. 

For me, three hours at a time - take a break - return and just play fun stuff.  See what you have in memory.  Don't try to play nine hours a day.  It's just going to make you start breaking down.  Go read a book.  Exercise.  Don't forget to drink water.  Do your studies.  Life can be fun in balance.  Who wants to be practicing around the clock (practically everyone on the forum, ok) - we all love piano - but it's just not really good for you.  'If God had wanted you to play piano all the time, he would have attached keys to the end of your fingers.'  (hey, i just came up with a new signature).

[smiggy]

Haha....Cheers for the post mate. Appreciate it. lol

[lostinidlewonder]

The effort you put in to your piano playing has little to do with the amount of seats filled in your concert hall. Realize that filling the seats and how well you play are very much separated. You could be better than Hamelin it would make no difference, you will not sell tickets to your concert if you do not go through the business to sell it.

Some people attract people to watch their concerts by wining major competitions or being taught by famous teachers. However not everyone can use this as their stepping stone. You will have to self promote yourself to get your tickets sold, that is play many preview concerts and sell tickets there and then. You must also approach scatter-gun methods to promote yourself, like posters, newspaper, radio, school newsletters, social group letters etc. Invite important people from your local government, invite music teachers, invite newspaper and the media. If they come or not it doesn't matter, if they do come and enjoy your concert, chances are when you return they will bring more people. The fact is that you must return. You cannot do one concert, wait 10 years ,then do another one, your concert momentum has been lost already. Momentum of your concert recitals is very important for a successful performance career.


Making mistakes on stage happens to everyone. The last thing you do is stop and apologize to the audience, you carry on. You can practice your pieces in such a way that you can recover from whatever error creeps in. Inexperienced concert performers rely too much on their muscular memory to play their music, so as soon as something is disrupted it take out an entire muscular memory block and thus the error is a lot more obvious and the music more interrupted. This requires countless, COUNTLESS hours of practice study and discipline. 3 hours a day probably right for a professional performing career but as a developing professional concert performer you should be push your musical output to your maximum.

[Bob]

You can always find some place to play, even now.  A teacher usually has some type of performance venue lined up for their students.

For money, it helps to be rich.  Or start young.  Or be a prodigy.  Work into things as you grow up. 

My feeling is that people are makig progress they're happy with with about 3-4 hours of practice per day. 

I think the cards are stacked against people.  If you're looking at it later in life, it's probably too late.  You have to have some kind of income, so that means a job.  Do you want to have a family?  That will take away a huge amount of time.  So a job?  Maybe a family?  There's not enough time left over after that. 

You can still practice, have a teacher, and do satisfying concerts though if that's what your after. 

[smiggy]

Yeah cheers Bob. That's an idea.
When I'm older, I'm still going to do a bit of work on the internet making websites since that is paying rather well these days.
Teaching the piano is always an idea. I could always have a day job and stick to doing like piano in the evenings and stuff.

Cheers for your advice.

[theodore]

During my undergraduate work at a local university I sat in the violin section during rehearsals of our Symphony Orchestra.   At one concert the senior piano teacher at the university was to perform the Grieg Piano Concerto.  Rehearsals went well as the pianist and orchestra touched up sections of all three movements of the Grieg Concerto.  We concentrated on bridge sections, cadenza entrances, tempo changes , etc…

During the actual concert the concerto began well with crisp tempos and good entrances by both the pianist and the orchestra.  The second movement also went well and was very emotionally  interpreted by all concerned.   The last movement began  quite briskly and the pianist even speeded up slightly. However we noticed that, after a few minutes,  the tempo gradually began to slow down as the pianist began showing signs of physical and mental fatigue.  The conductor sensed this and we in the orchestra were especially alert to these changes. However, the concerto ended in a rather cumbersome and somewhat bedraggled manner.

Our rehearsals never included the playing of this concerto nonstop from beginning to end.  We learned the hard way that the physical aspect of performing any large 3 or 4 movement piece is overwhelming and requires the stamina of an athlete. 

Theodore

[richard black]

the physical aspect of performing any large 3 or 4 movement piece is overwhelming and requires the stamina of an athlete.

Become an opera repetiteur - then you'll have the pleasure of performing, for instance, Elektra (105 mins), Das Rheingold (145 mins, though you do get 16 bars off for the anvils bit) or even Götterdämmerung Act 1 (125 mins) - and then Acts 2 and 3 later in the day.

[Bob]

If you have pressure on you, I think a recital is very close to running a marathon.  Be in good physical, mental, emotional shape.  Rest the week before.  Then push it for the performance.  It's an endurance test.  Not quite one you do everyday like that as preparation.  I remember pushing on and getting a second wind and that wall of fatigue that could kick in, and then you push past that.  Quite a high though too.

[franzliszt2]

I find it mentally exhausting more than anything. I mean, you practice 6 hours a day for a performance, so you will not get tired physically at all during the concert (hopefully...if you are nervous, tension may creep in, but you learn to deal with that) but after the concert my brain is exhausted. The whole build up to the concer is the worst. I never feel like practicing before, so I just relax, and drink water and try to eat, but my mind is always occupied with the performance. So it is like a whole day of intense concentration and adrenaline. Then after the concert you have to go through the whole after concert drinks etc...and then finally go home...and it is impossible to sleep! I cannot sleep becasue my mind is to active....but my body is telling me to sleep.

Then you get up in the morning and prepare for the next concert