How to Prepare for a Piano Exam

Piano performance anxiety is a manifestation of certain beliefs that your student holds.

Some of these thoughts might be:

Fear of failure

Fear of judgement or criticism

Messing up in front of their peers

Expectations on how their performance should go

Thinking that the performance must be a perfect rendition

Not trusting in their abilities

There might also be some aspects of the performance or exam itself that might make your student feel nervous, such as:

How prepared your student is

Experience level of performing

How many people will watch the performance?

Length of the performance – if a student has a 20-minute recital, this will be very different from a 1-minute performance.

Context of the performance - for example, performing for an examiner would be very different to playing just for their family.

Getting to the root thoughts of anxiety with your student can be really revealing and a good place to start.

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