How do your objectives as a performer inform and shape your practice technique? (Part 1)

How do your objectives as a performer inform and shape your practice technique? (Part 1)

How does my objective as a performer affect how I practise? For me there is a clear correlation between what it is I am trying to achieve as a performer and the way in which I practise.

As a performer, I have two very clear objectives. For my audience, I want to share my love for music and deliver an enjoyable performance but in order to achieve this I have a very clear goal for myself: to play without any memory lapses and without being affected by a lack of confidence in my own abilities.

Memory Lapses

Despite loving performing, one of the biggest fears has always been to perform a piece only to have lapses of memory. This in turn would not only affect what I am playing but also increases my levels of stress when I recover from the memory lapse as I am then worried that the audience may have noticed what happened and that it may happen again.

Because of this fear, my practices are geared towards having full ownership of the piece I am required to play and one of the ways I do this is to go through a series of exercises that help me with memorisation. I listed all the exercises in my article about Methods of checking successful memorisation for intermediate and advanced students. 

If you’ve been struggling with memory lapses please get in touch with Edyta Lajdorf – professional pianist and qualified piano teacher. She’s available for private piano lessons in London 

Disbelieving in my own abilities

We constantly feel judged and criticised on the stage but we forget that actually most people in the audience want us to succeed and all the little mistakes we make don’t really matter as they sound enormous only from our perspective.  When I perform I would like to forget about two little devils that sit on my shoulder.  The first one says ‘you don’t remember what’s coming next, you will forget’ and the second one ‘you just made a mistake, you will fail in everything now’.

Performance practice

It is beneficial to perform under what I call ‘the stress condition’ this is when I have an audience or recording which creates a different environment to when I am practising by myself. When I practise alone, should something go wrong in the piece, I can stop and play it again but when I am being recorded or listened to, I have no option but to continue. This type of practice forces me to experience stress, its teaches me where there may be issues in my performance which I hadn’t realised and most importantly it gives me confidence that I will be able to handle any problems or mistakes that might arise in a public performance. After all, there is a huge difference between playing well under non stressful conditions and playing well ‘on demand’. This quality is what separates successful people in all areas of the arts, sports and business and why I make it a clear part of my practice regime.

Edyta Lajdorf BMus (Hons) RCM, MMus, LRSM (Teaching), SMISM

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