This weekend I swapped teaching piano for playing it, providing the music for a wedding reception at Rookery Hall.
For the guests, the performance began when I sat down at the piano and started playing. For me, it had begun rather earlier.
A little glimpse behind the scenes, from preparing at home to packing everything away again afterwards.
Prepare
Earlier in the week, I spent some time at my Yamaha U3 revisiting pieces for the reception. Much of the music was familiar, but familiar doesn’t necessarily mean ready to perform. There are always details to revisit and passages that benefit from a little attention.
The U3 had also just been tuned and was sounding particularly lovely. Preparation isn’t only about practising: looking after the instrument, organising music and making sure everything is ready are all part of the process.
On Saturday that continued with setting up, soundchecking and getting everything ready before the guests arrived.
Then it was time to stop preparing.
Perform
Once the reception began, there wasn’t much point wondering whether another half-hour of practice might have helped.
It was simply time to play.
And there’s a rather nice parallel with what’s happening in lessons at the moment.
Over the last week I’ve been talking to lots of pupils about what they might play at our Autumn Showcase on Sunday 15 November. We’ve been choosing pieces and starting to think about what needs to happen over the next few weeks to make them ready to share.
I’ve also emailed parents with the registration details, so if your child would like to perform and you haven’t registered them yet, there’s still time to do so.
The setting may be rather different from a wedding reception, but the process is much the same:
Choose something. Prepare it. Then share it.
Enjoy
And perhaps this is the most important bit.
We don’t practise simply to become better at practising.
The repetitions, difficult bars, slow play-throughs and occasional moments when our fingers seem determined to develop opinions of their own are there to get us to the point where we can enjoy making music.
I certainly enjoyed playing on Saturday, and it was lovely to have several guests come over at the end of the reception to tell me how much they’d enjoyed the music too.
That’s ultimately what all the preparation is for.
The same applies to the Autumn Showcase. It isn’t an exam and it isn’t about producing a perfect performance. It’s an opportunity to prepare something, experience sharing it with other people and, hopefully, enjoy doing so.
There’ll even be coffee and bring-and-share cake, which should help with the final part.
Prepare. Perform. Enjoy.
There’s a connection here with the Play. Progress. Enjoy. idea that runs through my teaching.
Playing regularly helps us progress, and that progress opens up more opportunities to enjoy making music.
When we’re working towards a particular musical moment, perhaps we can think of it slightly differently:
Prepare. Perform. Enjoy.
Preparation isn’t about achieving perfection.
It’s about doing enough beforehand that, when the moment arrives, we can stop worrying about getting ready and enjoy being part of it.
And for quite a few of us at the moment, that next moment is 15 November.