"To perform or not to perform?"... That is the question.

“To perform or not to perform?”... That is the question.

As music teachers, we unquestionably hope that our students can fully maximize their potential as musicians - in the sense that they not only become capable performers, but are also well-versed in other areas of musicianship.

Performance has most often been used as a primary gauge for musical progress and accomplishment. A performance is worth more than a thousand words. It is the consummate revelation of an underlying preparative process. It is a reflection of the efforts invested, level of commitment, and care put into the practice process. Performance also seems to be one of the most tangible ways of showcasing the collaborative efforts of both teacher and student. But, in the case of a bad day, a poor performance seemingly renders everything irrelevant – all painstaking preparation and hard work maintained throughout the years seemed to have dissipated in thin air.

Perhaps before launching our students onto the concert platform, we should pause for a moment to reconsider a few questions: What is the music teacher's mandate? Is it to groom performers exclusively? Is concert performance necessarily the best approach for every student? What are the benefits that they will derive from a public performance at their current stage of learning / or with their current level of preparation? Is the student able to cope with the associated demands and stresses of a performance? And lastly, what are the potential tradeoffs (if any)?

I would surmise that many of us who wish to learn tennis will never become champions in the field, nor do we ever intend to participate in the Wimbledon tournament. By the same token, I understand that many students take music lessons primarily for the purpose of artistic enrichment. It stands to reason that students should have the option to choose whether they wish to perform.

With my background training as a musical performer myself, I strongly encourage my students to perform. However, the process operates on a strictly voluntary basis.

Performance preparation can enrich the learner’s palette of musical experiences - so that the

student understands the processes involved and experiences the full realm of emotions encountered by concert artists - from painstaking practice to making blunders in rehearsals, calming butterflies in the stomach at the green room, all the way to "post mortem" analyses of the concert and dealing with negative criticisms. Performance, however, is only one of the many musical paths one may undertake.

I recognize that not all students have the desire to pursue or even to experiment with the performance path, no matter how informal the performance setting is. It is simply not the path that one opts for. Just like, not many of us would choose to spend a day in a garage as an auto mechanic (with the exception of the rare auto enthusiast) – with the goal of experiencing “hands-on” how it is like to be an automotive professional. The process may be educational, enriching - but the bottom line is - do you really want to pursue it? That is the ultimate question.

In this regard, it may simply be unrealistic to have expectations on our students to perform. This is particularly so for the casual adult learner who has to juggle with career, family, and other commitments. For some, music lessons primarily serve as a stress reliever. As one of my adult students, a university professor, shared with me that “piano is a haven for me. I feel completely relaxed and revived when I get to the instrument. It alleviates me of the pressures of the daily grind.” In this instance, imposing extraneous demands such as a concert performance may proof to be detrimental.

As music teachers, we also recognize that some students are evidently not ready both psychologically and technically to perform in public. In this instance, rather than insisting that they “bite the bullet” and potentially setting them up to fail, I may try to "transform" the task of performance into other musical projects - of which, making recordings is one.

Students can learn as much from the recording process. Unlike a stage performance, they are not confronted with the pressures of delivering a one-take performance in real time in the presence of a live audience. Instead, students are given multiple opportunities to “reshape” their performances. In the recording studio, students are exposed to a different array of challenges. They acquire experience in performing for a consort of microphones, going through multiple retakes (which they may quickly discover that performance generally worsens after the first couple of trials), as well as participating in the editing and production of their recorded performances. As musicians of the new millennium, learning to slice and splice using Adobe Audition is as important as being able to perform reliably on stage. Meanwhile, in the recording and editing process, students develop the ability to listen for subtle nuances, to make artistically coherent judgments and choices while integrating musical performance with technology.

Ultimately, the role of the music teacher is to widen the scope of learner's artistic experiences, while helping them develop so that they can take pride in their endeavors. I accept the fact that not all students are destined to become concert artists. Instead of leading learners towards a direction that they have no inclination of venturing into, I try to make appropriate accommodations that are tailored to each student's specific needs. My goal as a pedagogue is to help them flourish artistically and musically. To be effective, this involves maintaining a delicate balance between providing students maximal challenge yet without imposing excessive burden upon their enrichment experience.

By Angela Chan

Copyrighted March 2007