title: Graduate Recital
Creators: name: Nelson, Thomas Gordon
Publisher: name: Utah State University
Year: 1965

description: The prospect of presenting a recital was very exciting to the author for two reasons. First, in spite of the fact that he has been associated with music as a performer and teacher-conductor for twenty years, this writer has participated in only one formal solo recital situation. This was a performance of Morceau Symphonic, to complete requirements of a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Brigham Young University, and was prepared with little formal supervision. The second, which is directly related to the first, was the desire of the author to attempt to prove that he had gained at least a modicum of competence on the instrument he has been "holding" for the past twenty years. In relation to this second point, Earl Swenson states in his Graduate Recital Report that,
There are a number of reasons why a person should be an excellent performer, In the first place, he can justly claim himself to be a practicing musician, a member of the ranks of capable players . He can justifiably feel a certain prestige and admiration . Through the excellence of his performance he can inspire his students to harder work and higher standards. The attainment of a high degree of performing ability indicates through (sic) study over a period of time; it reveals that most or all technical problems of singing or playing have been mastered or understood.
Because the author had practiced in only a sporadic manner for the past ten or twelve years , it was expedient that the lip be conditioned carefully and rapidly through careful practice . The first lesson from Professor Alvin Wardle was spent in the presentation of a set of warmup exercises, some of which the author had already used, These were to be used each day as exercises, not only to warm up the lip, but also as an aid in gaining t he proper concept of a characteristic tone; proper methods of actually blowing the instrument; am, to me, the most important, that of the placement and focusing of the tone. These exercises are in mimeographed form and are available from the Utah State University Music Department. However, it is the feeling of this writer that any set of "warm-ups" can accomplish the ends desired and therefore, are not particularly valuable as a teaching aid except in the hands of a competent teacher who has an excellent concept of what he is attempting to gain through the use of the exercises.
During this first lesson, work was actually begun on the numbers which were going to be used on the recital. The instruction centered around two main problems, The first, which was the actual learning of the numbers, consumed most of the time of each lesson.
The method by which the instructor proceeded to accomplish the task of preparing this student for a recital was interesting to note, He, of course, was well acquainted with the solos and thus was able to choose the most difficult ones to begin working on. The general procedure was to choose two solos and make them the project of that week's practice by giving them most of the attention in the lesson and practically all of the practice time during the week, The next week two different solos were chosen and they were given most of the time, except during this week one was required to keep the other two solos up to the level of the first week,