What do you do and think about right before a performance?
Generally, the hours and minutes before getting on stage are spent going over some last minute details, warming up the voice, making sure we look presentable, maybe dealing with some stage fright and trying to calm ourselves, making sure we’re staying hydrated, and so on. Right?
Basically, our focus is on ourselves. That’s understandable: we want to be ready and to give our best, and that’s obviously good.
However, I’d like to suggest that we also spend some time thinking about the people we’re about to sing for. Take a real, genuine interest in them.
I don’t mean in a personal, one-on-one way. Be sincerely interested in helping them have a deep and inspiring experience through the music you’re about to share.
If you’re sincere, and you’re sensitive enough, you can actually tune into what some of those individuals’ needs at this particular time may be. This awareness might even lead you to choose one song over another, or change the order of the songs, or the kind of interpretation you give them, because you feel that that’s what your audience needs.
This can happen only if you look at your audience as if you were looking at a group of friends, instead of strangers. I say this because in the performance world there’s often the tendency to separate the artist from the audience, almost as if they were from two different worlds.
This is absurd: without an audience, the “showbiz” would cease to exist!
Whatever you can do to create any kind of psychic connection with your audience will help you be a more effective and impactful performer. Smile at them, invite them into your world of music, beauty, and art. That’s what they’re there for. If they had the skill, they would do it on their own. Instead, they need you to be the “conduit” of that inspiration for them.
If we ever lose sight of what performing is all about, let’s remember that the bottom line question should always be, “How can I help and serve my audience better?”
If you do that, you will always be in demand as a singer, not by hysterical fans, but by hearts that need upliftment and healing.
