Q & A
Each month, MusicBizAdvice.com answers your questions about the music industry.
How to Improve Your Stage Presence:
Q: How can I improve my stage
presence? It needs work, but I'm at a loss.
A. Stage presence is something that comes with time and experience in front of a
live audience. But if you're willing to work hard at it, there are a few things you can do
to help speed up the process:
1. Play, play, play. Play out everywhere, to a variety of types of audiences. The more
types of people you get in front of, the more situations you'll be able to handle, which
will make you more confident.
2. Study concert videos or DVD's of artists known in the industry for being great live
performers. Jon Bon Jovi, Shania Twain, and Kevin Cronin of REO Speedwagon are a few who
are excellent at working a crowd. Watch the show once all the way through, then turn the
sound off and observe what the performer is doing to get reactions from the crowd. Watch
how they communicate with the audience. Don't copy their movements, but use what you've
learned as a basis to learn how to communicate with your own audiences.
3. Choose two or three people in different sections of the audience, and play to them. But
do it in a way that makes it look like you're looking at larger sections of the crowd.
4. To get the back of the house involved even when you can't see the people well enough,
focus your vision in several places at the back of the venue--a doorway, the bar, an exit
sign, etc.--and play to an imaginary person there.
5. Go to every live show you can, and learn from what you see.
Q&A Home
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you to additional information if necessary.)
Answers in the MBADC Q&A are to be taken as general advice only and are not intended
as a substitute for legal advice from a competent entertainment or intellectual property
rights attorney.
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