How to Polish a Piano Musical Piece for Performance?

Serious musicians and pianists are witnessed to always come prepared for their performances as they understand how audiences are going to respond if their musical pieces have some flaws or mistakes. Thus before playing a piece in front of audiences, they finish and prepare it well to present it in front of their fans in the most presentable finished form. For a successful musician, this is essential. It is important to make sure that your performance doesn’t have any flubs, technique errors or any other flaws that may make the whole experience bad. Here we will be sharing some important aspects and factors that each musician should consider in order to accomplish their goal of a powerful live performance.

How to Polish a Piano Musical Piece for Performance?

1. Memorize it well:

Live performances are often challenging for musicians especially for those who are beginners. Therefore it is often witnessed that musicians forget their piece during performance. If you forget a piece and stop in between, it would break the overall magic that you might have created with your music, thus disappointing your audiences. You may forget some notes or lose keys’ track. Thus it is important to know the piece well by heart. Practice it well and even when you don’t have piano close to you, run the piece in your memory. Not only it would make your memory of that piece strong but if there are parts that are shaky or any mistakes in the piece; you will be able to identify them before performing in front of audiences.

2. Adding flavor of expression and versatility:

Even an average piano player can play some musical pieces well however if you really wish to polish your performance with a musical piece; you would need to add more flavor to it. Creativity is the key to success when it comes to an art like music. You add more expressiveness and richness to your piece and you will find your audiences having more fun with the magic that you may spread with your musical performance.

3. Practice at different tempos:

Practice that piece at different tempos and hear it back to see at what pace you find it more magical. Some of the difficult pieces may appear beautiful when they are played at a slow speed so just make sure you check what is the best way of playing the piece with enhanced expression?

4. Improve the technical aspect:

Make improvements in technical aspects of the piece such as changes in frequency, reverbs, presets and others that you feel may tighten up any loop holes in the piece. Along with the changes that you may be making in the dynamics of your piece, you should make sure that it should sound natural and should have a range that doesn’t fight out feelings. Do not put too much in one piece or it will begin to look unnatural and unprofessional too.

5. Collaborate with other musicians:

Sometimes your colleagues or competitors or teachers who share similar interest and goals as you and are successful musicians can be best mentors and may prove helpful in polishing your musical piece. Collaborate with them and you may come across something that may inspire you for further adding creativity to your piece. You may find some inspiration of making slight changes to melody or scale or something more. But in the end these creative efforts would prove useful.

6. Be open to critiques:

If you are really focused on improving your piece, you should be open to hear to different opinion. There will be people who may hate your music and there will be people who may identify the areas where your piece may be lacking. Hear them well and identify good critiques/feedbacks. You would need to stay humble if you really want to learn and improve. Leave your ego aside and take suggestions and feedback positively.

7. Practice what you already know:

One of the biggest mistakes that musicians usually make is that they devote much of their time in learning new pieces and techniques. Thus they are left with no time to refine the piece they already know and would be playing in their live performance. Innovation is important but do not compromise on finishing your pieces on trying to learn new methods or pieces.

8. Be confident:

Sometimes musicians may have done everything to polish their final pieces for performances but they are unable to control some factors such as nervousness, stage fear etc. that may make the piece they know quite well; difficult for them to play on stage. This is strange but it does happen. This surely is frightening but try to get a grab over it and play with confidence.

Conclusion:

You will be able to play a solid musical piece only if you have dedicated enough time and efforts in polishing and refining it to stand out for a beautiful musical experience for your audiences. Polish the piece well, memorize and practice it well for your performance. It is not advisable to spend all of your time in learning some advanced techniques but dedicate time for practicing your finished pieces so that you can play musically well in front of your fans.

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