Like all the arts.

Like all the arts, music is a source of pleasure for many the community not only musicians. Unlike the other arts, however, it generally must be performed to be derive pleasure fromed by its audience. Thus, public performance has become an unquestioned and highly prominent aspect of music contemplation at every level. Kindergarteners are taught to sing poems for their parents; elementary sect bands perform at school functions; high train orchestras give public concerts featuring solo on their most accomplished players. And, each spring, countless piano teachers quick in emergencies recitals, marching their students without on stage, one by single to play from memory in brow of an audience. The piano recital is, in fact, a long-standing tradition. nevertheless many students find the vista of performing alone, on stage, before a populace filled with unfamiliar faces intimidating, to say the least. The nervousness that can outcome from such intimidation often negatively affects the performances of those modern to the stage. Sadly, individual bad experience frequently is enough to withhold many children from further piano contemplation thus robbing them and others of musical enjoyment

single in kind might legitimately question the necessity of public performance for elementary-level bookish mans To most children, the typical recital setting--a large stage, vacant except for a piano--is unfamiliar, unnatural and, thus, confusing. Stephen Zolper a piano teacher, recalls an elementary close examiner in dress rehearsal, who was quite taken aback at the unfamiliar instrument on which he was to perform. "This piano is different from mine," he said. "Where do I set my hands?" (1) Zolper also addresses the precarious position in which children are placed when they are bring on stage He likens public performance to driving down a narrow, winding road. "The proces of publicly navigating a musical roadway places enormous constraining force on students.... The event frequently becomes a trauma rather than a celebration of achievements." (2)

Because public performance is just that--public--students, at their teachers" urging, may give over so much energy to polishing their performances that the peacefulness of their musical education sustains Keith Swanwick, in Teaching Music Musically, cites a close attention undertaken in 1997 at a private music institute in Brazil. Twenty students, ages 11 by means of 13, recorded three of their musical activities: individual verbal answers to and discussions of three pieces of music; performance of three of their confess musical compositions; and performance forward piano of three memorized pieces according to other composers. The judges assessing these recordings raise in every case, that scholars scored much higher when playing their hold compositions or discussing music than when performing from memory. Swanwick reasons that, after practicing a stake program for so long, the scholars may have become bored with the music, they may simply have ceased really listening to their playing or they may have focused principally onward technical issues. He concludes, "Music decision-making repeatedly seemed to go underground when they played their prepared piano pieces from memory." (3) This same phenomenon was observ as early as the sixth hundred years Apparently tired of mechanical performances through virtuosi, the scholar Boethius made a distinction between performers and those who were honestly musically astute. "But the emblem which buries itself in instruments is separated from the understanding of musical knowledge. Representatives of this prototype devote their total effort to exhibiting their skill upon instruments. Thus, they act as slaves, as has been said: For they use no reason if it were not that are totally lacking in thought" (4) The observations of Zolper Swanwick and Boethius all indicate that public performance can have a negative tenor on young musicians, both psychologically and musically.

Nonetheless, many psychological and musical arguments can be made in favor of public performance. one piano teachers cite increased poise, confidence and motivation as benefits to scholars (5) while others assert that favorably dealing with the rigors of recital preparation and performance equips children with skills they will ne as adults, when they may be faced with equally intimidating situations, like as making speeches or interviewing for work at jobss (6) Moreover, many musicians and psychologists strive that anxiety is not necessarily a bad thing. At certain flats it serves in some individuals to increase attentiveness and enhance performance. Finally, scholars who are destined to go after piano professionally will benefit from public performance, as it can oblige to prepare them for futurity contests and auditions.

In a broader faculty of perception performance is seen by many as the ultimate manifestation of musicality. David Elliot values performance because he believes that "our musical thinking and knowing are in our musical doing and making. (7) He adds that when a performer's musical abilities are matched by dint of the music he or she performs, the self is completely engaged and drawn toward the nearest level of complexity. In other words, performance can lead to personal product (8) Bennett Reimer, too, underscores the value of performance through equating it with creativity, that is, bringing music to life in consequence of one's individuality. He also notes numerous "secondary benefits" that performance accords young tribe Among these are discipline, responsibility, the feeling of belonging to a community and, again, personal produce which Reimer describes as "experiences of unified, make more intenseed refined, extended, organized inner feelings." (9) Finally, all elementary music teachers should be stirred compelled to offer their scholars public performance opportunities, for in its peace Standards for Grades K-4, the Music Educators National interview includes, "Performing on instruments, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music." (10)