How to Perform Brilliantly

Last week, I attended the 2024 American Guild of Organists national convention and was able to participate in amazing classes that have taught me a lot about the organ and how we play it. One of these such classes was “How to perform brilliantly” taught by Anne Marsden Thomas.

The class began with the introductions on the three key aspects to a brilliant performance: repertoire, practice, and performance. The repertoire is an aspect of performance that is not talked about as frequently but is just as important. If a performer is playing music that is too advanced for them, they will not be able to play with full confidence. This adds additional risk to a performance which can prevent performers from doing the best they can. To prevent this, Thomas suggests the use of graded anthologies. The use of these books allows for students to gain repertoire without worrying about ruining technique. Students can simply flip to the next page and know that the pieces are the right level for them. The importance of playing the right music during a performance cannot be forgotten because the confidence this provides is what allows organists to perform brilliantly.

The second aspect to a brilliant performance—learning—also contains three sections. The first step while learning is planning. This element of learning consists of understanding your piece. To play a piece well, you must understand its background and what is important about it. During this time, you should also write in the fingering and footing you plan to use when you practice and perform. The next step in the learning process is to learn the piece. A helpful acronym for this step is SSS: slow, staves, and segments. Playing slowly, separating parts, and working on specific chunks of the music, all help develop muscle memory that allows you to play flawlessly during your performance. The final step in the learning process is troubleshooting. This involves going through your piece and fixing the trouble spots. One of the most dangerous things to do during this process is correcting and continuing. This creates incorrect muscle memory and does not solidify the trouble spot. A better way to practice would be to find the root of the problem. Most mistakes can be tied to something that happened in the measure or two measures before. Finding the original problem and correcting that provides security and will also fix the “original” problem. If you are stuck and do not know how to fix your mistake, pausing before a dangerous passage to think about your next notes can be helpful. This forces you to think about, and understand, the trouble passage and can help you correct it.

The final component that leads to a brilliant performance is the performance itself. While you can never completely recreate a performance to practice, there are many ways to simulate what it will be like. Performing your piece in practice is very important and while you are doing it, imagine an audience and treat this like a real performance. While performing, the three things to remember are to play continuously, always keep the rhythm, and to wipe mistakes from your mind. These can all be practiced in a practice performance and one way to add pressure is to record your practice performance. This allows you to see how you perform under pressure and listen back to see how it changed your playing and if there is something else you need to fix. Lastly, one of the tips Thomas suggested was to take deep calming breaths and to exhale at the start of your piece. These tips as well as good planning and repertoire allow any organist to perform brilliantly.

#interview #students #music #piano #performance