The Many Varieties of Piano Performance

Learning to perform on a piano requires practice. I don't mean practicing at home. I mean practicing the art of performance.. Many opportunities are necessary not just to become comfortable playing with people watching but also to explore what's beyond those first performances. The final stage of learning is growing into a performer. A performer who is able to entertain, to capture the attention of those watching and to hold their attention. Pasadena Piano Institute students have lots of opportunities for this exploration.

There are gradations of difficulty in performance. When you imagine a traditional recital where the audience are all seated in their chairs and listening intently. That's the most difficult performance environment there is.

Another factor in difficulty level is whether you are performing as a soloist or in a group performance. In a group, there's camaraderie so there's some emotional support in the performance.

Here is the entire range of Pasadena Piano Institute's performance opportunities with a description and a difficulty ranking. Most piano studios and academies offer only the most difficult performance opportunity. The formal piano recital. We believe in a variety of opportunities.

Traditional Formal Piano Recital (The Most Difficult - 10 )

This kind of performance is what most people remember from their childhood lesson experience. PPI students can participate in a once a month formal recital hosted by the Music Teachers Association of California.

House Concerts (Less Difficult - 9 )

When a PPI student has learned and polished all of the repertoire from a book and can play it "by heart", they perform a House Concert in order to graduate. A House Concert is simply the parent of a PPI student hosting some friends or relatives who then are an audience for the graduating student. House Concerts can be scheduled any time of the year when a student is ready to graduate and at the convenience of the parent.

Master Class ( 8 )

A Master Class is when a small number of students perform separately for a master and then each student gets a 20 minute mini lesson on the piece they just played. Usually no more than 4 or 5 students perform in a Master Class.

Certificate of Merit® ( 8 )

The Music Teachers Association of California (MTAC) hosts a nationally recognized annual evaluation program that students can choose to participate.in. While this is not a performance in the normal sense, a student does have to perform their assigned music and technical work in front of an independent MTAC evaluator.

Informal Piano Recital ( 7 )

During the COVID years we started doing recitals on Zoom and then hybrid live and Zoom. We found it to be a much more informal experience. Students can also choose to upload a video for the recital as a third option. Recording a video reduces the stress of performance but there's a different kind of stress involved in recording. Since errors are more pronounced in a recording it's easy to become the classic perfectionist. That's a good skill to develop but we encourage students to focus on their live performance skills.

Adult Piano Salon ( 6 )

At the Pasadena Piano Institute we offer adult students a performance experience that feels more in line with an adult sensibility. It's always seemed awkard to us to see an adult who performs following a series of very young children. The Salon includes tea and discussion about our performances and music in general. It's very pleasant.

Schnabel Group Lesson ( Moderately Difficult - 5)

Artur Schnabel was a renowned concert pianist in the early 20th century. He would offer his students a rare form of group lesson. Each student gets an "individual" lesson in front of the other students. All of the students in the room are studying the same piece or group of pieces, or skill level. There is no performance but what's incredibly valuable is to watch the master interact with a student. Because you're not the one on the piano bench, you can observe more fully. And because the student is studying the same piece or has the same problems you have, it's very instructive to see the master solve a problem for another student.

Piano a la Carte ( 4 )

Director David Cutter takes an acoustic piano out to outdoor community events to perform. As a part of developing a student's performance experience, students are invited to perform at these events. What makes this kind of performance relatively low stress is the level of attention  the audience is giving to the pianist. These events usually have the "audience" walking around and in conversation with other "audience". The "audience" is not sitting or focusing on the pianist. This is a much easier performance to prepare for than the traditional recital.

Button: Read The Story of Piano a la Carte.

Team Piano Open House Performance  (Less Difficult 2 to 3 )

Student teams, after a semester of weekly rehearsals, get to show their work in performances at the Pasadena Piano Institute's twice a year open house. These events have limited audience seating but are free and the public is welcome to attend.

Team Piano Rehearsals ( Least Difficult - 1 )

These are not performances in a strict sense. A team member is playing "in front" of their peers at each weekly rehearsal. In other words, since they are not playing at home, there is a heightened sense of "other people are listening". So team members experience a little of that performance pressure even in a rehearsal.

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