Performance Review

Today we had to do a performance review where we had to perform both of our pieces. Unfortunately, my accompanist forgot his music for My Favourite Things so I couldn't perform that, but I did do my other piano piece, Sparrow.

I thought that it started off well, as it always does because a habit is to go back to the start of the piece everytime you practice, which is a habit I should get out of by starting with a different bar of my sheet music instead. As the song progressed, I feel it got worse. I played the wrong notes and my fingers stumbled over the keys because I was so nervous. What's fustrating is that when I rehearsed it before, it went better and not so many mistakes were made as to when I peformed it in front of the class. Also, what made it worse was showing my audience that I had gone wrong by my facial expressions and saying things under my breath. If I hadn't of done this, my audience wouldn't have known the difference as they didn't know the piece, this is something to keep in my mind next time I peform.

I think something that affected my performance the most was my nerves. My hands and legs were shaking and this definitely affected my performance. Because it was a solo piece, all I could think were negative thoughts about myelf and putting myself down. Even though the group I peformed in front of were very supportive and I have performed in front of them before, it is still a very daunting thing to do. To try and calm myself I could think positive thoughs and get into my head that I can do it instead of telling myself that I can't. Also, I can try and practice or perform in front of my family/friends to get used to playing infront of people and try blocking them out and concentrate on myself more than worrying what my audience are thinking.

In my performance, there were some good elements in my playing. Such as when I went wrong, I just carried on instead of stopping which would have made it more obvious to my audience. Also, some parts of the piece I played were good, such as the beginning and some bars in the middle.