It’s easy to get traction starting around a week before a concert, give or take. Suddenly, the looming public performance helps your students get into gear and make big leaps forward.
The challenge is to get traction further ahead of the concert. If you can gain traction when the concert is distant, you can make tremendous progress on tackling more and more interesting repertoire – and on making the music you perform more subtle and musical.
With weekly groups like mine, three effective strategies are (A) intermediate goals – memorization dates, solo checks, etc., and (B) countdown by rehearsal, not by date (like, “three rehearsals left until the concert”) and (C) more performances – bi-weekly informances for family and friends, impromptu performances, lunchtime sings, and the like.
What do you to keep from spinning your wheels when the concert’s a long way off? How do you like to maintain traction?