What Makes A Successful Performance?
Performance Development: What Makes A Successful Performance?
Posted on November 25, 2010 by Richard L. Matteson Jr.
Hi,
Quality and continuity are the two main ingredients for a successful performance. Aaron Shearer called them “accuracy and continuity.”
Quality or accuracy is the least important of the two main ingredients and refers to your tone, the quality and volume of the sound and the number of mistakes. If you make mistake after mistake it surely will not be an acceptable performance. If your nails (assuming it’s a classical guitar perf) are bad or you pound the strings the result may be an unacceptable performance.
A few minor mistakes may not be objectionable and the audience may never know you made them. That’s why you should never let mistakes upset you- once a mistake is made it’s behind you, just carry on to the best of your ability.
Every performer should know what to do if mistakes happen and be prepared to deal with any problems when they occur.
We’ll deal with mistakes in another blog.
Continuity is the most important ingredient for a successful performance. If you stop or hesitate it’s usually immediately noticed by the listener. Breaking the rhythm signals that something is wrong.
The goal of the performer is play the piece from the beginning to the end with stopping or pausing.
We’ll look in detail at how to develop these performance skills in another blog,
More to come—–
Richard