Why should students attend competitions

Recently, I have a student who is really against competition. I tried to explain to her why it is beneficial to participate in competitions.

In my opinion, there are three main reasons why students should join competitions.

First of all, it helps them gain performance experience and confidence.

The main reason why students are reluctant to compete is that they are afraid of playing poorly on stage. Usually, they are just overthinking it. Students who participate in competitions understand that most performers make mistakes on stage, and it is not a big problem if you do. Watching other players at similar levels helps you recognize your strengths and weaknesses. With more and more performing experiences, you will gain confidence and feel more natural playing the piano in front of others. This is also good preparation for piano exams.

If students never step out to perform on stage, their stage fright can grow bigger and bigger in their imagination. Especially if they don't begin performing at an early stage of learning (such as in grades 2 or 3), it becomes harder to try for the first time when the pieces they are learning become more difficult.

Secondly, it gives students motivation to practice and aim high.

The process of preparing for a competition is hard but meaningful. You will put in a lot of hard work, making your music sound better and better in order to achieve the best result you can in the competition. Without this opportunity, students (even I as their teacher) often lack motivation to perfect a piece of music. They may just play the music adequately and move on to the next piece without working deeply on it. As a result, the musicality and technique of students who frequently compete are usually better than those who are not frequent competitors.

Lastly, competitions provide an opportunity to learn from other musicians.

Competitions are another way to share music. If someone plays the same piece of music as you, you can listen to how they interpret and present it, and learn from them. Sometimes, you may also hear new pieces of music you weren’t familiar with before, and that can motivate you to learn new things.

All in all, competitions are beneficial to students, provided we educate them to approach competitions with the right attitude. As a teacher, I don’t ask my students to win prizes at competitions. I just hope they enjoy and learn from the process of preparing for the competition, enjoy the moment of sharing their performances with others, and learn from their peers. The result is the least of my concerns. However, I believe all my students can achieve good results in competitions because of their hard work and my guidance, which will help them gain more confidence in piano playing.

written by Megan Cheng