Getting to hear and see our students on stage is one of the primary reasons we do what we do here at Sunburst. The act of taking what you’ve learned and performing it for others is a major milestone, and one of the fastest ways to get better as a musician. With our Winter Recitals fast approaching, we put together a few tips for both first-timers and veteran performers to prepare themselves. 

Space out your practice

The spacing effect tells us what may seem a little obvious—that cramming the night before a test is the worst way to study. Instead, try practicing more times, in smaller chunks throughout the day and the week. Instead of running through your song 4 times in a row, run it through twice, then come back a few hours later and run it through twice more. The more times we remember and forget the material the better we retain it.

Pretend you’re on stage

The classic little league coach saying: “you play like you practice” holds true here too. One way to do this is to get in the habit of playing your piece from beginning to end without stopping for mistakes. All musicians make mistakes, and the best way to handle them is to try to get back on track without skipping a beat and without reacting. Most of your audience won’t have even noticed! This takes practice and intentionality, but it’s a great skill to develop.

Be ready to improvise

This is sort of a continuation of our last tip. Different styles of music call for different amounts of improvisation, however as the saying goes, “the show must go on”. In the world of performing, we must learn to expect the unexpected, and be ready and comfortable with going off script at any moment. Improvisation in this context could mean ways to alter or elaborate on whatever you’re playing, ways to make any mistakes sound intentional and/or happy accidents, or even just being ready to loop the verse pattern a few times while you try and remember the words to the chorus! Most importantly it’s about practicing being comfortable when things don’t go 100% to plan.

Practice your gear

When we practice, oftentimes we’re not practicing exactly the way that we’ll be performing on stage when it comes to our equipment whether it’s practicing singing un-mic’d, practicing electric guitar without an amp, or drums on a practice kit. While this is necessary a lot of the time, many times new performers are surprised or thrown off by how their voice sounds coming through speakers, or how their guitar reacts at a loud volume. It's a good idea to try and do at least a little bit of practicing with a microphone, through a loud amp, etc. to try and get used to the sensation and dial in your settings. 

There are tons more great ways to think about practicing, but most importantly just try to remember to practice any which way, the more the better!