My Senior Year Concert at The Frost School of Music
Skills Developed:
Domain research / roadmap planning / prioritization / time management / work ethic / discipline
Time:
Mar 2011 - Apr 2012
Background
After a 16-year journey of intense music study, my passion for music performance was culminated by a solo piano concert at the University of Miami Frost School of Music, where I prepared and performed works of my choosing. I had one year to prepare for the concert, so I started by identifying my primary goals and breaking down the process into a series of milestones spanning areas of development, planning, and execution.
My goal in performing this concert was threefold:
- Effectively convey my own informed yet honest interpretation of the music to my audience
- Challenge myself as a musician and impel personal growth
- Exceed my instructor’s expectations of technical facility and musical maturity
Milestones
Similar to launching a product, preparing a concert is an involved process that requires significant research, organization, and planning, as well as adapting to new learnings along the way. I started out by outlining the following milestones for myself:
- Milestone 1: Choosing Repertoire
- Milestone 2: Research
- Milestone 3: Planning / Prioritization
- Milestone 4: Execution (learning & practicing the repertoire)
- Milestone 5: Testing
- Milestone 6: Launch (performance)
- Milestone 7: Review
The bulk of this process was obviously in the Execution phase (actually learning the dang pieces). As such, it was crucial that I move through the initial 3 milestones within the first month or so, spend roughly 9 months executing, and then leave a couple of months in the end for refining and running simulation launches (AKA rehearsals).
Milestone 1: Choosing Repertoire
In order to meet my three goals, I outlined a number of KPIs that would help in determining the right repertoire:
- Music that I have a connection to, that feels personally meaningful so I can convey that meaning more effectively. I have a strong affinity for Romantic Period music, so most of the selections would probably be from that genre.
- A mix of both poignant and exhilarating music to keep the audience engaged
- At least 2-3 large scale, technically challenging pieces to demonstrate both in-depth analysis and technical facility to my instructor
- Continuity in theme to help the audience follow the progression of pieces
- At least one hour of music, but not more than 90 minutes (spoiler alert, the concert ended up being about 90 minutes, while most of my peers’ were about 60. I definitely had my work cut out for me)
Through careful research and consulting with my instructor and peers, I ended up with the following selections:
- Brahms – Opus 117 (3 Intermezzi)
- Extremely deep and poignant music. Soft, serious, and introspective
- Being 3 short, easily digestible pieces with not too much fireworks, these would serve as a great beginning to show, sort of like an appetizer
- Granados – Allegro de Concierto
- Crowd pleaser. This piece is altogether flashy, exuberant, full of energy, and yet has moments of real beauty. Enrique Granados being a pianist himself, this piece is expressly pianistic and requires not only technical skill but an ability to bring out a single melody line over what sounds like an orchestra sweeping about underneath.
- Chopin – Grand Polonaise Andante Spianato et Grande Polonaise Brilliante (2 pieces)
- The first of these two pieces is made of pure beauty and serves as a brief introduction to the second piece
- The second piece, which serves as the main feature of the work, was possibly the most technically challenging in the entire program. It’s a great way to end a concert due to its majesty, brilliant ending, and just utter difficulty
- Beethoven – Piano Concerto No. 3 (3 movements)
- This is a concerto and therefore meant to be played with an orchestra accompanying the soloist. I didn’t have an orchestra, but I did have an excellent pianist and friend that was gracious enough to learn the piano reduction of the orchestral part and play alongside me
- Being the only Classical Period work in the program, and also the largest in scale, this challenged me on all sides, from technique to memory, form analysis, depth, dynamic control, and playing with an accompanying performer
Milestone 2: Research
Once I determined the repertoire, it was time to get to work. I began my deep-diving into the pieces as much as possible through a few approaches:
- Cursory analysis: Play through each work in its entirety to get a feel for its content; where the challenges are, what the form looks like, what the requirements are.
- Research: Read up on the composer, genre, and the work specifically to get a more in-depth historical or stylistic context. Speak to peers or mentors to get feedback on their understanding of the work.
- Listen: Listen to a ton of performances by notable artists to hear how different performers interpret the music and approach various technical concerns.
Milestone 3: Planning & Prioritization
You might be surprised just how much music fits into an hour and a half. When you think about how much time and effort might go into playing a difficult passage that takes only 8 seconds to perform, 90 minutes begins to look a little daunting. Where to start….
Well, first I broke down each piece into components. I called them by different names then, but for the sake of relatability I’ll express them in our oh-so-sophisticated Product terminology:
- Pieces = Features
- Movements / major sections = Epics
- Minor sections within a larger frame = Stories
- Individual passages or measures = Tasks
I then developed a roadmap to chart out how I would get from A > B > C and so on. This would obviously change as the process developed and I got deeper into the weeds, but it was a rough guideline for how I planned to get where I wanted to go. I started by attacking the most challenging areas first, as well as some of the easy wins.
Milestone 4: Execution
And now we get to the nitty-gritty.
I dug into a strict practice schedule. It was hard. There were ups and downs, frustrations, and setbacks, but with the incredibly wise direction of my instructor, the infamous Tian Ying, as well as some much-needed sympathy and feedback from my peers, I pressed on; crushing tickets, regression testing, re-fixing bugs, gathering feedback, putting the pieces together. Balancing with my other course work, my practice time averaged between 2-5 hours/day, 7 days/week throughout the year leading up to the concert.
Milestone 5: Testing
I would be lying if I said my execution and testing phases didn’t sort of bleed into each other. While some works were ready early on and had already moved on to beta testing, others (particularly the Beethoven) were still being worked out.
During this period, I solicited select friends, family, and colleagues on various occasions to run practice performances. After each performance, I would gather feedback and try to dig into what my listeners were saying. “You thought this section was boring, how so? Was it too slow? Did you lose track of the melody? What general feeling do you think it’s trying to convey? How would you do it differently?”.
At first, I was user testing individual works, but by the last few weeks leading up to the concert, I was doing full performance run-throughs. You invariably uncover new issues when trying to run the entire thing at scale. I found memory gaps, fatigue issues, bugs I thought I fixed, sections that didn’t come across the way I intended. All that informed my day-today practice sessions in preparation for launch.
Milestone 6: Performance
On the day of the performance, I did little but try to clear my head. This was not the time for making adjustments to the product; no more full run-throughs; no updates; no changes. I had already done that work. Instead, I rode my bike, drank water, took deep breaths, and did some light warming up to make sure all systems were operating well.
I’m proud to say that this puppy launched and was largely successful. It was nerve-racking, it was exhausting, but most of all it was exciting. The chance to share your work with a willing and engaged audience that reaps the benefit of all the time and care you put into the final product is what we all live for.
Milestone 7: Review
After some celebration, it was time to assess and review how things went. I went again back to my original objectives for evaluation:
- Effectively convey my own informed yet honest interpretation of the music to my audience
- By all accounts, this was achieved. I received warm words on my performance from audience members, as well as colleagues.
- Challenge myself as a musician and impel personal growth
- Without a doubt, this was extremely challenging and forced me to break through walls I didn’t know I could. Almost all of the repertoire consisted of tremendously difficult music that required relentless, methodical practice and consistent time management.
- Exceed my instructor’s expectations of technical facility and musical maturity
- Though I know he could have offered years of advice (that’s why he’s a master of the art), my instructor had kind words of praise to offer and expressed pride in what I achieved, which I’m beyond grateful for.
These being qualitative objectives, there were, of course, numerous opportunities for improvement. I made note of a number of areas that would need more work and consideration in future practice:
- Various technical mistakes that needed more fine-tuning and performance experience to withstand the effect of nerves.
- Areas where the melody didn’t shine through as much or as well as intended. This could have been addressed better if I had included more self-recording in my practice.
- Sections that were too slow or too fast. Again, more self-recording and performance exposure would help tune my ears to the perceived pace and quell nerves
But all in all, I’m pleased with the outcome of this incredible journey from conception to launch, not just for the output of the performance (I’m grateful for that too), but for the impact it had on my personal and musical development.
Final Thoughts
This concert was the most challenging and rewarding thing I’ve done in my music career to date. It required an extreme level of planning, prioritization, and discipline but allowed me to achieve something I’ll be proud of for the rest of my life. And beyond that, I was able to retain skills from lessons learned in roadmap development, process strategy, time management, problem-solving, and work ethic, which I’ve carried with me in all personal and professional endeavors since.