Tuesday Teacher Tip - Having a Recital in Quarantine
These are indeed strange times. Music lessons stopped mid-semester. Some students were able to transition into online lessons, some just paused until in person lessons could resume, some have just had to end their piano journey for the time being. In the chaos and confusion, it could be easy to overlook the end of the year Recital. I would like to challenge and encourage you to try to still have a recital. First I’ll tell you why and then I’ll give some ideas on how to have a Recital in Quarantine.
First, why should you have a recital?
1. Sets a Goal – setting a concrete, definite goal will help motivate students to practice and stick with their lessons.
2. Rewards Hard Work – recitals give students an opportunity to show off their hard work or favorite song and receive applause and encouragement in return.
3. Builds Community – recitals build a musical community around a student – parent, friends, extended family, other students and other families. All these people can aid in encouraging growth, observing progress, and build relationships based on the shared interest of music. Within the community, students also have the opportunity to learn from more advanced students and model for younger students.
4. Gives a sense of Normalcy – with so many cancellations, having your annual recital will feel like a breath of fresh air.
Now that you are convinced that you should continue on with your end of year recital, how should you go about it? I am going to give three ideas including the idea that I ended up using. I am a big believer in the golden rule (do unto others as you would have them do unto you), so I tried to pick options that would not put undue stress or concern on families. Also, use your state/county/local government guidelines to help you design your recital.
Basic Recital Design
Before we get to the different options of a recital – here is my basic format for my end of the year recital.
- Welcome Speech
- Program of Songs
- Recital Compliments (I have students share compliments with one another – see this link to learn more about recital compliments)
- Refreshments.
Option #1) Outdoors
You could host your recital in a field or large backyard or parking lot. Make sure to have a power source available and you will need a transportable keyboard. If you don’t have one, maybe one of your students does. Ask families to bring blankets and chairs and try to spread out. Maybe everyone listens from their cars. Depending on everyone’s comfort level, you could forgo the refreshments or just have families bring their own refreshments for their personal family.
Option #2) Online
Using an online meeting service like Zoom or Google Hang out, schedule a live but online recital with all of your students. Send out invitations early enough, get RSVP’s, and develop your program. Send out the program to families before the recital begins so students can be prepared. Also, if you are going to do a compliment exchange, make sure to have students know who they are responsible for listening to and complimenting (maybe you assign them randomly, maybe it’s the person who performs after them). Have students email you their compliments (or if you have a small enough studio, have them share it verbally immediately after the performance).
Make sure to record the recital. You can then share the link with your families to pass on to extended families. You can also post it on your studio’s social media pages.
While the recital is happening, make sure to mute non-performing families. Since everyone will be muted, students won’t hear the applause. A fun accommodation could be to have everyone use “Deaf applause” – which is to shake open hands quickly (like jazz hands) to show applause. It would be a neat visual that would still convey encouragement and accomplishment without the sound of clapping.
Option #3) Written
(due to my county’s restrictions and the availability of my studio families, this is what I ended up doing).
Have parents record a video of the students playing (have them introduce themselves and the title of the song). Parents send the video to the teacher by a certain date (Google Drive worked well for me). I then uploaded all the songs to a playlist (I created one on my YouTube channel and my Studio’s FB page). Then I wrote a blog article (you could also do an email if you don’t have a blog). Within my blog, I was able to include my
a) Welcome Speech
b) Links to individual student videos
c) A Button to send a recital compliment email (the emails sent to me and I compiled and disseminated them out to students)
This option was a little more work on my end but there were several benefits for me personally. A Written Recital in Quarantine made it very easy for my student families to share with friends and family. It gave families a lot of flexibility; they could record the videos and watch the recital when it fit their schedule. It also provided me and the students a permanent memory of the recital. It is recorded and they can go back and visit it whenever they want.
In terms of after recital refreshments, other than asking the parents to provide their own, a fun and easy accommodation is Goody Bags! I made my own, one for each student, with little treats and candies and wrote a note on the bag. I then delivered them to students’ homes. It was a nice errand to get me out of the house and it was good to see students in person even if it was just to say hi from six feet away!
Resources
If you would like to see my Recital in Quarantine, check it out here:
If you are interested in how to host a recital compliment exchange, check out this resource. This product will be on sale, 20% off, June 1st 2020 to June 15th, 2020.
What did you think? Did you do something different to end your piano year? Please, share your ideas in the comments below!