Young ones and last-minute nerves
Truly, the best thing that you can do to prepare young students for a recital is be proactive. Start as early as you can to practice how the recital piece would go including introducing themselves, the piece, the composer, and, most importantly, the bow.
However, it can happen where young ones, especially, get into an unexpected fit of butterflies and have a hard time entering the performance space. Here are some strategies that may help a young student feel as comfortable as possible at their instrument (my experience is that of a piano and voice teacher, but a lot of these could be applicable to other instruments):
Before entering the performance space, take one deep breath together and ask if they would like you to walk with them.
Walk up with them and get them settled (either behind a mic or to their singing/playing spot). If possible, ask quietly if they would like you to stay on stage or if they are all set to play or sing by themselves.
If you choose and are able to sit on stage with them, make sure you are not visually blocking the student and try and sit slightly behind them so that your presence is supporting them, but they aren’t tempted to look at you in the middle of their performance piece for guidance.
If you are accompanying your student in some way with a melodic instrument, bring some support by playing their melody line if you find that they’re starting to stray, but keep the beat and accompaniment going. Part of the proactive-ness of preparing for a recital is spending adequate time having a student practicing keeping on going regardless of what mistakes they make.
At the end, make sure to follow up with the student immediately at the end of the performance and give them praise for completing their performance, whether you are on the side of the space waiting for them to finish or while walking offstage with them! At the end of the whole performance make sure to tell the student with the family present how proud you are of them for taking the leap to perform their piece even though they were nervous!
If students make an obvious mistake (even if it’s only to you), make sure to validate those feelings and let them know that even though they made the mistake, at least they did (insert positive thing here) and that we can think and take that into account for next time!
Throw any other successful strategies you use with your students to bring out confident recitals in the comments!
