1. Prepare and rehearse. Know everybody else’s lyrics, so that you can fill in and define parts of the song to get or keep the crowd hyped. Rehearsal is important in order to show that your a professional or on the brink of becoming a pro, you’d got to know where the other person should be onstage.

2. The lead vocalist should almost always take center stage, then move from right to left interacting with the crowd. Always, go center stage when your verse starts this brings the attention to you, especially if you have multiple people on stage.

3. When being the leading vocalist of a song whether it’s a hype song or mellow, use apart of your body to keep the beat or rhythm of the music such as; dancing, moving the mic to the beat, move your hips to the beat, etc…. This shows the crowd your into it, and pulls them into your world.

4. Setting up your song- People want to be able to connect with you as a performer. Talk to them, tell them a short story about yourself that leads up to a song. Either, the story can be funny or serious, as long as it leads into a song that emphasizes the feelings of the story, your audience will be able to connect with you.

5. Have fun- the audience knows when your nervous or having a bad day. Being able to perform in front of people should get you amp’d anyways. But most importantly have fun, show the crowd that your enjoying yourself, and they will enjoy right along with you.

TIPS:

A. Rehearsal is the building block of all performances. It can bring you great ideas and x out the bad ones. Rehearsal is important because it makes your shows tight, meaning like a well taught karate move, you do it without thought or thinking. Rehearsal is the only thing that can make your show cohesive and eliminates the stars from the fakers.

B. Mirrors- If you have the means to do it. Mirrors can be great in fine tuning a act. As in step 1 on this “how to”, in a mirror you can see where everybody is and what there doing when your in the middle of your verse.

C. Back to rehearsals- If you ever get pre-stage jitters rehearsal can fix that. Just when you rehearse imagine yourself and how’d you want to feel in front of a audience, even the nervousness. It will help you cope with.

WARNING

DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT turn your back to the audience unless it’s incorporated in your show plans. If you turn your back it may show that your disinterested in the performance and you may loose touch with your audience.

DO NOT try to get the crowd hype and follow you if the crowd is honestly not feeling you yet. You may totally loose touch and you may be faced with a crowd full of blank stares. Or worse, you may loose your mojo totally and get the infamous booooooooooo…

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However, you must always remember that YOU are not the primary purpose of the restaurant or bar. The primary purpose, as for any business, is to make money.

As a performer, you should be able to relate to this, since you need to make money as well. (If you are just doing it for the music, while a great noble and artistic attitude, you’re better off just jamming at home.)

Your purpose, as far as the club is concerned, is to bring in customers – and keep them there. Remember that at all times, even though it can mean swallowing your pride.

You do need to have artistic integrity, but you also need to recognize where your needs conflict with the needs of the paycheck writer.

There is probably no musician alive who can hear the words “you’re too loud” without jumping into a defensive attitude. It doesn’t help that it always seems to happen just when you’ve hit that “sweet spot” where you feel like everything is working together perfectly. Bam! “Turn it down!”

There are two areas to this problem that you will have to deal with: Mental Solutions and Physical Solutions.

Mental Solutions

First of all, remember again that one of the reasons you have been hired to play is to keep customers from leaving. If you really are too loud, turn it down. Don’t let your ego sour your attitude.

Still, you always need to be aware that someone may ask you to turn it down at any time, and don’t take it personally. (I know, this is easier to say than to do.)

The fact is, no matter where you play, you can’t please everyone. There will always be those who think you are too loud and those that want you to crank it up. You can’t play to the extremes. You need to find the level that is right for the majority of the customers, even when that seems too low for you.

Physical Solutions

Sometimes it just isn’t physically possible to crank it up to the sound level that will make you happy and still keep the customers happy. When that’s the case, you need to get creative.

If your volume is so low you can’t hear yourself over the chatter, you’ll never play your best. So you need to find ways to play louder for yourself and quieter for the audience.

Here are a few solutions that work in difficult situations:

• Run everything direct to the mixer so that instrument amplifiers don’t overpower the room. (Good luck if you have drums!)
• Use small monitors as close to you as possible, for instance on a mike stand.
• Use no house speakers (or minimal, for clarity). Let the stage mix be the house sound as well.
• Use no stage monitors at all, using in-ear monitor systems or headphones. Then the house speakers can be adjusted to the level that is comfortable for audience.

Every situation is different, so these solutions are not the definitive answer. Look at the problem from both the club’s perspective and from yours, then use your head to find a workable approach.

You just may well may remain sane enough to play your heart out!