Teaching Concert Etiquette

As music teachers, we are familiar with the rules for concert etiquette but that doesn’t mean our students are. It also doesn’t mean our parents, administrators or teachers understand either. As educators, it is our responsibility to teach concert etiquette to our students and the community. How? Read my tips to find out more!

Your Role As The Music Teacher

Depending on the age of your students and the culture of the community, this may or may not be your students’ first performance or experience in a concert – period. As music teachers, we set the standard and we are the example. With this in mind, I urge you to consider your students’ impressions in all school settings and situations. For example, students might get the wrong idea if they see you chatting with a colleague during a school assembly when you have told them to avoid talking during a performance.

Remember, little eyes are watching you always!
Model the behavior you want your students to follow

Teaching Audience Etiquette To Students

Before I start teaching students performance etiquette, I start teaching them audience etiquette. One area I like to start is the difference between formal concerts (i.e. classical music concerts) and concert events (i.e. rock concerts, music festivals, etc…) From my experience, most of today’s students will be familiar with the rock concert setting but will be less familiar with a formal concert and its expectations.

Split image showing two types of concerts: a loud, energetic crowd at a pop or rock concert with raised hands and cell phones, contrasted with a formal classical orchestra performance in a grand concert hall with seated audience members. — I like to show my students images of audiences (similar to these) and ask them if they think these audiences have the same rules and expectations. It develops into a class discussion from there!

As we discuss as a class, I will usually make a list of their perceptions about what is and is not appropriate during each scenario. The lesson follows from there! If you’re interested, you can check out my Concert Audience Etiquette lesson which includes a PowerPoint lesson and reflection handout for students.

Throughout the year, I will remind my students of opportunities to practice their audience etiquette (school assemblies, concerts, etc…) I also encourage my older students to set an EXAMPLE for my younger ones. Ideally, I hope to help this become a part of the overall school culture.

Teaching Performance Etiquette To Students

When it becomes performance time, I like to ask students reflective questions…

How can you show your audience you are ready to perform?
How should performers demonstrate they should be taken seriously by their audience?
Are there any performance behaviors that might be distracting for the audience?
What sort of behaviors might cause the audience to lose interest in the performance?
What kind of behaviors will keep the audience’s attention during the performance?
Where should our eyes be looking as we perform?
What should our bodies be doing as we perform?
How will we capture the audience’s attention for the duration of our performance?

Sometimes, I will use concert footage from previous concert performances to help students reflect on glows and grows. It helps them see first hand if something could be improved for their upcoming performance. Finally, sometimes I have to give them reminders during rehearsals to execute the behaviors we discussed. By the time it’s concert day, they usually do a wonderful job!

Teaching Audience Etiquette To The Community

This is a bit trickier since we don’t often have our admin, colleagues and student families in class with us. However, here are some strategies that may help:

Remind audience members that students have worked very hard in concert letters
Consider a short speech (or memo in the concert program) about concert etiquette
Plan to guide audiences during the concert – here are some ideas:
- Please hold your applause until the end of this multi-movement work.
- I will acknowledge all soloists at the end of the performance so please hold your applause.
- Applaud (or clap) at parts you want to encourage your audience to clap.
Encourage students to model their best audience etiquette for the community benefit!

I hope this post gave you some ideas about teaching concert etiquette! Please leave any additional ideas as a comment on this post to benefit other music teachers!

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re a music teacher with a concert coming up. Looking for ideas for concert planning? Check out my post on Concert Planning for Music Teachers.