Today is the day of my very first piano recital. Much excitement ran through my body and some anxiousness. I’ve been preparing for weeks for this day. Throughout the weeks I asked many people I knew, which included my friends, my family. In fact, I also invited my bus driver. The only person that I wanted to come to watch me was my bus driver. I know, it’s unusual. But I was most excited for her to come to see my performance so that way we could talk about it the whole bus ride. As I’m getting ready my head holds many thoughts such as who will be there, how big is the stage, what if I fall off the stage??? I was overthinking, maybe a bit too much.

We start driving to the place where I’ll be performing. 

Once we reach the destination where I’ll be performing, it turns out it’s the place where I do my lessons every Thursday. However, the whole place was huge, so every week I had my lessons, I’d forget which way to go. 

My family and I walk over to the front desk and ask the front desk lady for directions. She tells us where to go and we start heading over. We reached the spot where the front desk lady told us to go. It leads to a very large door. 

We enter the room and see a narrow hallway. As we’re walking, we turn and look to see stairs going down leading to where the recital will happen. The staircase was so wide that whoever went down them, most of the attention would go to you. 

We’re walking down the stairs and I catch a few eyes looking at us. It’s probably because of the loud sound coming from my shoes as we are walking down. Once we reach the ground floor I realize how big the room is. It seemed smaller when we were at the top of the staircase. Also, it turns out there isn’t a stage here like I thought there would be. The grand piano stood on a wooden platform. The platform was raised a little so that way the audience could see the performers. 

A lady walks over to us and asks, “Will this young lady be performing today?” I bet she figured that I was one of the performers because of the nice black dress I had on and the books I held in my arms. 

I respond with an enthusiastic, “Yup!”

“Ok, you guys can go find a seat over there, and you young lady can come with me”, the lady says.

We walk over to the seats right by the wooden platform. 

I spot my teacher and she spots me. She motions her hand to go sit at the seat she’s pointing at. She wasn’t able to speak since the first performer went up and started playing and we didn’t want to cause any distraction. 

I walk over to the seat and sit down with my books on my lap. 

The performers go up playing different music with different instruments. So far I saw some playing piano, some people playing guitar, and some people singing. Soon after it was my turn to perform. 

I stand up and walk up to the platform. I go over to the microphone to state my name and what song I’ll be playing. I point the microphone to my mouth and say, “Hi, my name is Sophia and I’ll be playing Jingle Bells on the piano.” 

I walk up to the piano, set my music on the stand, and sit down. I place my hands on the piano and wait for a few seconds. 

Those few seconds I think to myself, “I don’t want to do this anymore, so many faces with their attention on me, nothing else.” It’s too late though. I take a slow deep breath. 

I start playing as my hands shift along the keys hoping that I won’t mess up. I continue playing with anxiousness running through my body. Just then I play the final notes, and I’m done. I take a quiet sigh of relief.

The audience applauded as I took my books off the stand, walked over to the middle of the platform, and bowed. 

I walk up to my parents and just then I spot my bus driver. She spots me looking at her. I then run up to her and hug her. “Sweetie you did so well”, she says. I say, “Thank you so much, 

I can’t believe you came!” She responds with, “Well of course I had to come to watch you play!” 

Today was my first piano recital, and even though I felt like I wanted to quit with an ongoing tense feeling at the moment of playing, I still made it through. I know I’ll go through this feeling in the future again. But honestly, this was amazing!

Piano Pt. 2

Today is the day of the recital. I’ve been playing piano for 6 years, but whenever I have a recital I’m always nervous even though I’ve done many of them throughout my years of playing. I try not to overthink it much. 

I put on a nice white dress with glimmering earrings and some heels. 

Minutes before we have to leave the house I rush over to my piano, set my music on the stand, and sit down. I play the song I’ll be performing on my piano at least 5 times to make sure I don’t mess up on stage. You can never be too sure. I get everything I need and run into the car.

We drive over to the salvation army where I normally perform. 

We arrive at the place and start walking inside. My dad goes over to a bench and sits down while I walk over to my teacher by the front desk.

 “Hey Mrs. Alison”, I say. 

“Hi Sophia, wow I love your outfit”, she exclaims.

 “Thank you, you look so pretty”, I say back.

She responds with, “Aww thank you, dear.”

Just then somebody yells, “4:30 performers can you please form a line over here!”

 I turn around to see the other performers getting lined up by the door. I hurriedly speed-walked over to the back of the line.

We walk into the auditorium and see our names written on index cards on the chairs. I take my seat in the third row. I count everyone before me to determine when I’ll be playing. Looks like I’m the 13th performer, I got time. 

Once 4:30 hits on the clock, the music director walks up to the stage and walks over to the microphone to give her speech which she normally does. Once she finished her speech she called up the first performer. 

As more performers went up I soon realized my turn was coming up. The performer before me gets off stage, now I have to go up there.

I walk up to the stage and then walk over to the microphone. I adjust the microphone and say, “Hi, my name is Sophia and I’ll be playing Deck the Halls on the piano.” 

Then I walk up to the piano praying to myself that I don’t mess up because Deck the Halls is a known song and people will notice when I make a mistake. As I’m walking, I take a glance at the audience and see my dad holding his phone up recording me. I walk up to the piano, set my music on the stand, and sit down. 

I put my hands on the keys, and I think to myself, “Why am I still getting nervous like this, I should be at least a little confident by now after all these years.” 

 I just stare at the piano for a few seconds and then take a deep breath. I shift my hands through the keys as anxiousness runs through my body, like always. Before I knew it, I finished the piece. I take my music off the stands and take a bow as the audience applauses. 

I go down the steps and sit back down in my seat. I take a big sigh of relief.

Today was the day of the recital, I still have that same feeling that I’ve had at every recital for the past 6 years. That means I did around 18 recitals with these 6 years of playing. I’ve improved a lot by playing more complex pieces than before at each recital. I love playing piano but one thing hasn’t changed, I bet you can figure out what it is. At least I got this recital over with.