If you have participated in choir, band, or orchestra, you are probably very aware of following the director, and maybe even this particular director. Know how the director conducts entrances and cut-offs. Some will be really simple turns, others will seem like the page turn is placed in the most inconvenient place.Ĭhoreographing and rehearsing them in advance will help you smooth out any rough turns that might be trickier than the others for various reasons. Plan in advance whether you will omit notes, what notes you will omit, and which hand will turn the pages so that you can practice that specific choreography for each page turn. Practice the page turns so that they become a seamless part of the performance. Please put your music in a binder or upload it to your iPad so this doesn’t happen to you! □ Tip 3: True story: when my dad was young, he was singing for a wedding, and the accompanist’s music fell onto the floor when she turned the page! In the middle of the wedding! He continued singing a cappella until she was able to pick her music up off the floor and find her place to accompany him to the end of the song. This will streamline your practice sessions, help you become accustomed to the order of the program (which for me is a fabulous bonus!), and keep the music from falling off the piano as you work on your page turns. ![]() If you know the order of the songs/pieces in the concert, go ahead and put the music into the correct order. ![]() Three-hole-punch your music or place it into plastic sheet protectors and put it in a black 3-ring binder as soon as you receive it. It’s best to know the performance tempo, or at the very least an approximate tempo, before you begin so that you know what your final performance goal is. You don’t want to practice something too slowly or too quickly. When you get the music from the director, ask for a specific tempo for each song before you begin practicing. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) If your students follow these helpful tips, they’ll be able to accompany their first gig like a pro! Tip 1: “Begin with the end in mind.” So, without further ado, here are ten tips for beginning accompanists that my students have found to be extremely helpful, and hopefully your young accompanists will find them useful as well. I have also added five more tips for accompanists, bringing the total to ten. She has been practicing the music for about three weeks, and we have been working on her accompanying skills during her lessons.Īs a seasoned accompanist who has played for music majors all through college, for churches through graduate school and beyond, and for our local high school choir on a regular basis, I needed to think through the things that I believed would help her the most, since she was accompanying her high school choir for the first time.Īs we worked together, I created the first half of this list especially for her, but I thought it would be helpful to anyone who is learning to be an accompanist. One of my high school students was asked by her high school choir director to accompany their Christmas concert. ‘Tis the season to employ your accompanying skills, or teach them to your students! ![]() ![]() Accompanying 101: 10 Tips for Beginning Accompanists This post is featured as part of “ The Top Influential Piano Blogs You Should Be Reading” at Digital Piano Review Guide.
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