Do you know why musical concerts are so effective in motivating a child to learn music?

It is a fantastic opportunity for children to experience what it’s like to achieve a goal. Going on a journey to achieve a live performance of excellence is a perfect tool for developing a child’s attitude and character.

Take this illustration.

The bottom part of the iceberg is the most important part of being a teacher. The job of a teacher is to guide the child to:

• never give up, even when they feel tired
• reassure that failure and mistakes are good for the learning process
• show that with dedication, hard work, good habits, disappointment, sacrifice, failure and presistence, miracles can happen

This is what I consider a ‘perfect’ concert performance:

• the spirit of moving on and pushing forward even though there were stumbles in the performance
• that the children gave their all during the process, practising and practising, on their path to mastery
• that the children perform in front of an audience, in spite of the fear and stress they may be experiencing

One of the children I taught performed many times and regularly stumbled at the performance, even though he practised as hard as he possibly could.

When he played in a studio, in the absence of many eyeballs, he performed well. Yet, on a concert stage, he froze. This went on for 6 years, but we both persisted. The parents were also supportive. When he stumbled badly at the concert, I continued to praise him for his courage and determination to never give up. Those words of positive affirmation motivated him. He is now 10 years old, and his recent concert performances have been stellar. No freezing, no stopping in the midst of a performance. He was on the verge of mastering his fear and stress! One month later, he passed his ABRSM Grade 8 piano examinations with a high distinction score.

Organizing concerts for your students is a great tool to build confidence, perseverance, discipline and an appreciation that hard work is needed for great things to happen! It is hard work and time consuming, but like every other worthy goal– that’s the path to fulfilling success.