Why do I have to play in concerts????

A lot of students wonder why concerts are so important. It's a lot of work, and it's a lot of extra time, and it's pressure. But concerts are one of the most important things about learning music. Going to a concert is not just something that's good for yourself, but it's good for the other people playing in the concert for you to come and hear them play, too. And concerts are very good for parents to see how much the students have learned. The earlier you can get used to playing in concerts, the better your performances will be when you get older.

Concerts are what music is all about.

Music is meant to be performed. The violin, like any other instrument, has to be heard in order to be appreciated. When you learn music in the lessons, it's not just so that you can play it for yourself and your teacher, in a tiny little room, it's so that you can share it with everyone else that you know. This is why music is a great part of our culture, because we can use it to make other people happy.

You might not have gone to many concerts before. Most of the music we're surrounded by is recorded: on the radio, on your iPod, in the shopping mall, on TV. But there are a lot of musical performances out there, and classical music concerts are still alive and well. This is the way music was meant to be: performed, and shared with many other people to help make their lives better.

It helps you enjoy playing.

You might think, "What? Why would I enjoy that?" But the truth is that when you do a good job on stage and hear people clap for you, and congratulate you afterwards, you start to feel good about yourself. You start to think, "Hey, maybe I am pretty good at this music stuff." And then you go to your instrument the next day and wonder how much better you can do today than you did yesterday. You start to enjoy your lessons more, because you realize that the lessons make you better, and then you can do even more cool things on your instrument.

And then you start to look forward to the next concert, and you say to yourself, "This time, I'm going to do an even BETTER job! People will really think I'm awesome this time!"

It gives you standards.

When you're at home and practicing your instrument, it's pretty easy to treat yourself like a baby. You hear yourself miss a note, and you say, "Oh well, that one didn't really matter anyway." It's easy to tell yourself that you don't have to work so hard, because you'll get it tomorrow.

But when you play in a concert, then all of a sudden it matters. You can see all of your friends playing in the concert, too, and you can see who is well prepared and who needs to practice more, and you get an idea of whether or not you did a good job preparing yourself. And then the next time a concert rolls around, you know how much you need to work, because you say to yourself, "Wow, THIS STUFF IS REAL."

And, on the flip side, playing in a concert can also let you see that you really are doing a good job, and your practicing is giving you results, and you'll have an accurate way to judge yourself when you're at home.

The most important kind of standard we learn from playing in concerts is how to make things SOLID. See, it's easy to play something without mistakes when you're at home, and you're comfortable, and there's no pressure on you. When you go into a pressure situation, then you learn just how well you really know your music. There are five levels of solidity when learning a piece of music:

- At home, comfortable, no pressure
- In the lesson
- Playing with someone (group class, with teacher in lesson)
- Rehearsal with piano
- On stage

Therefore, just because you can play without mistakes at home doesn't mean you know it well enough to play without mistakes in a performance. Playing in concerts helps us judge just how well we really know our pieces, and that helps us practice effectively.

You get to see other students.

Playing in a concert allows you to see other students playing their instruments, and you can learn a lot from that. For one thing, you get to hear all kinds of music that you might not have heard before, and you might come home saying, "I want to play that piece someday!" And it also helps you judge what a good performance really is. You learn ways of standing that look good, and ways of walking up on stage that look professional, and you also hear what kind of tone sounds good in a concert, and good intonation, and what kind of musical playing makes a piece of music come alive. And you get to see that lots of other people are going through the same kinds of things that you're going through, and then you don't feel so alone.

It's also good for other students to see YOU, as well. Remember, it's not just about you, it's about them, too! Other students learn from watching you perform, and that can help them out with their practicing and their confidence as well.

It makes your parents happy.

This is a very, very important thing. Your parents are the ones who have practiced with you at home every day, and gone to your lessons and your group classes and your rehearsals, and gone to the trouble of finding a good teacher for you and talking to the teacher about you, and - also very important - driven you to all of your lessons and classes. Your parents deserve to hear you do a good job so that they can be proud of all the help they've given you.

It feels really good to know that your parents are proud of you. This may make you happier than you expect it will! And then you'll be proud of yourself, and you'll want to go and play in a concert all over again.

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