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…

http://www.lokey210.blogspot.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Terrence_Harper
http://EzineArticles.com/?How-to-Have-Stage-Presence-For-Groups&id=3315915

It’s no secret that virtually everyone loves music in some form or other. After all, music is the universal language. In one way or another we all participate in it from our cradle song to our wedding song to our funeral song, with thousands of other stops along the way.

The country-western fan may not like jazz, but he or she sure loves the sound of pickin’ & grinnin.’

And that’s as it should be. If we all liked the same kind of music, there just wouldn’t be the variety that is available to us now. We can choose from musical styles ranging from heavy classical and opera to rock to children’s songs to Broadway musicals to gospel music to the blues.

Each has its place, and each seems on the surface to be drastically different than another form of music. The key word is “on the surface.” But beneath the surface of all music is a commonality that is organic to all forms and styles of music.

So what does all music have in common? What makes music tick?

At least 3 things – sometimes more, but never less:

1. Melody
2. Rhythm
3. Harmony

The melody is the part of a song or composition that you whistle or hum – in other words, the tune of the song. In one sense, it is the most visible of the 3 elements, because melody is what identifies a song. Without melody, it would be difficult to even conceive of a song or piece.

In musical notation, the melody is almost always written in the treble clef – also known as the treble staff. It consists of a horizontal line of notes that move up and down on the clef as the tune moves higher or lower.

Rhythm is the beat – the swing – the throb of the music. It happens in repeating patterns, depending upon the type of music. It is like a horizontal line of beats which occur at regular or semi-regular intervals.

A waltz, for example, basically consists of a heavy beat followed by two lighter beats. So we say that a waltz is in triple meter – one strong beat followed by two weak beats, then repeated.

A march, on the other hand, generally consists of a heavy beat followed by a light beat, then another heavy beat followed by another light beat. (I’m simplifying, of course – there are many varieties?) So a march is in duple meter – as you might expect since we have two feet and we march in left-right-left-right patterns.

All rhythms are some combination of triple meter and/or duple meter, and the possibilities are endless – from boogie to R&B to mambos and sambas and bossa novas and on and on.

Harmony, the 3rd aspect of music, is the musical background of a song – the chords, or intervals “behind” the melody. Without harmony, a song sounds empty – like a vocalist singing without an accompanist – or accapella.

Music doesn’t HAVE to have harmony to function, but in actual practice it almost always does, even if it is just the interplay of two melodies, as in counterpoint.

You could spend a lifetime learning all the nuances of music, but it its most basic form, it is these 3 elements combined together; melody, rhythm, and harmony that comprise music.

Duane Shinn is the author of over 500 music books and music educational materials such as DVD’s, CD’s, musical games for kids, chord charts, musical software, and piano lesson instructional courses for both children & adults. His book & DVD course titled “How To Dress Up ‘Naked Music’ On The Piano!” is used by adults around the world.

By Jan Durrant

BASICS OF RHYTHM

Both the Quarter Note and the Quarter Rest get one beat.

The Quarter Note has a filled in note head and a stem.

The Quarter Rest is a vertical musical symbol which resembles a ‘W’ turned on its side.

The Quarter note symbol stands for a note that is played for the length of one beat.

In other words, play any key on your instrument right now and simply hold it down while you say ‘one’. It is what we would call a short note.

The Quarter rest is a musical symbol which stands for one beat of silence. In other words, beats of silence in music are counted just like beats of sound.

The only difference between these two musical symbols is that there is complete sound for one beat during a Quarter Note and complete silence for one beat during a Quarter rest in music.

CHORDS

A chord is defined as two or more notes from a scale played together at the same time.

Chords may be played in either blocked chord form or broken chord form.

A blocked chord simply means that two or more notes are played at the same time.

A broken chord is created when that blocked chord is just played one note after the other in sequence.

The first chord we will study is the C Major chord. The notes of the C Major chord are C, E and G.

Try this C Major Chord Exercise by placing fingers 1, 3 and 5 of each hand down on your desk or table top right now (remember that the thumb is finger number 1, the middle finger is number 3 and proceed to the pinky finger which is finger number 5).

Press down all three fingers (1,3 and 5) at the same time. You have just played the C Major BLOCKED chord.

Use this same table top method right now and similarly press down each finger 1,3 and 5 in sequence (one after the other) to create a BROKEN chord.

SPECIAL TIP** Remember, a chord with stems up means the right hand is playing and a chord with stems down means the left hand is playing the chord.

Article source: GoArticles.com About the author: Jan Durrant holds a Master’s Degree in Music from the University of Texas at San Antonio in Texas. She has over 25 years experience in both public and private school music teaching.

Playing by ear is the ability to play a piece of music (or,eventually, learn an instrument) by simply listening to it repeatedly. The majority of self-taught musicians began their education this way; they picked up their instrument and began playing an easy melody from a well-known song, slowly picking out the notes as they went along. And even after these musicians master their instruments or a particular song, playing by ears till plays a large role.

Many pop and rock bands don’t play or write their songs based on sheet music, they figure the songs out by playing by ear. It’s even common among non-musicians. Ever sit down a piano and mindlessly pick out the tune to “Mary Had a Little Lamb”?

What about grabbing a guitar and suddenly finding yourself playing the opening licks to “Smoke on the Water”? That’s playing by ear. You’re able to play part of the song just because you’ve heard it so often.

Since music is basically composed of 3 elements – melody, rhythm, and harmony, it is logical that there are also 3 basic steps to learning to play music by ear:

1. Charting the contour of the melody.

Tunes move higher and lower – up and down – as the song progresses. Being aware of that movement is the first step. Once you mentally define the parameters of the melody, you can then begin to hone in on picking it out on your instrument.

As an example, think of “Joy To The World”. We’ve all sung it a zillion times, but have you ever noticed that the melody moves down exactly 8 steps (an octave), then gradually moves back up in increments, then repeats the down movement, etc. The entire melody is contained within those 8 notes, so you now know the parameters of the song and can begin to pick out the melody intelligently.

2. Harmonizing the melody with matching chords.

The second element of music is harmony, and you can harmonize any melody just by matching the supporting chords to that melody. For example, if the melody is a “G”, you can harmonize that melody by using a chord with G in it, such as the G chord (G, B, D),the C chord (C, E, G), or the Em chord (E, G, B), or the Eb chord (Eb, G, Bb) and so forth. By using your ear to guide you,you can learn to harmonize the melody of most any song using matching chords.

3. Using an appropriate rhythm that matches the feel of the song.

This is usually the easiest part, since most people “feel” the beat and don’t have to do any mental gymnastics to come up with an appropriate rhythm for a song. But for those of us that might be “rhythmically challenged,” just by knowing that there are basically two meters available – duple meter and triple meter — that can be combined in infinite combinations, we can give the song either a “3” feeling (like a waltz or a jazz waltz) or a “4” feeling (like swing or a march or a ballad).

Playing by ear is a valuable technique for many musicians; learning songs based solely on hearing them is a great way to understand song and chord structure. In fact, a great number of rock and pop musicians learned to play their instruments this way. Instead of picking up a book or taking lessons, they concentrated on figuring out the notes and rhythms to a song until it was mastered. Then they moved on to another song. And another.

Gradually, they learned their instrument just by playing by ear — and in the process learned how to effectively structure a song in that particular genre. Playing by ear is also beneficial in helping a musician develop his or her own style; sure,they’ll at first mimic the style of the song they’re imitating, but the amalgamation of the music that they’re playing by ear will help them create something distinctive, something indicative of them only.

About the author: Duane Shinn is the author of over 500 music courses for adults.His book-CD-DVD course titled “How To Play Piano By Ear Using Chords!” at pianoplayingbyear.com has sold over 30,000 copies around the world. He is the author of the popular free101-week online e-mail newsletter titled “Amazing Secrets Of Exciting Piano Chords & Sizzling Chord Progressions” available from playpiano.com