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Sometimes, it’s easy to slack off.
Getting stuck in a rut can happen to many artists, unfortunately,
but this can often mean death to a budding music career. Here
are a list of five areas that will allow you and your band
to improve on your live music performance, as well as your
offstage careers!
1. Showmanship
They call it show business for a reason – both on and off the stage,
you should strive to make yourself a better showman, or show-woman. Performing
live is all about building direct connections with your audience – making
eye contact, engaging with them, letting them know that you’re feeling
their positive energy. Your stage presence and stellar dance moves are also
essential, but few great performers succeed without knowing how to connect with
their audience first.
Don’t forget to radiate your persona offstage as well. Keeping it real
will allow your fans to relate better to you and your music. Maintain this authenticity
online and find things that will hopefully surprise and delight the fans. That’s
showmanship.
2. Fan Outreach
The true driving force for artists are their loyal fans. They provide the emotional
fuel – and the funding, which aspires musicians to continue producing
bigger and better things.
The key is involvement.
Allowing fans to interact with you is a great
way to reach out. Meetups, contests, social media games, mobile
apps, remix projects, inviting them onstage at a live music
performance… the sky’s the limit. Anything that
gives fans a chance to participate is a great way to connect
with them.
By the way, unless you are serious punk, never
ever get into confrontations with fans. It never ends well.
In any situation where a fan is upset with you (or is upsetting
you), find a tactful way to defuse it peacefully, and hopefully
in a manner that encourages them to leave without any hard
feelings.
3. Merchandising
Honestly, it’s not all about selling
a large sum of your products. We all love free cash but that’s
hard to come by on a daily basis. Marketing your brand in
a way that will attract fans to purchase your product is the
way to make money, and that’s what allows you to keep
performing.
Remember to keep your eye out for new opportunities.
We’re not talking KISS-level marketing here, just always
have a full stock of T-shirts and posters. Always work to
find ways to make them better. A lot of made-on-demand merchandise
is produced with poor quality. If you can generate better
wares, your fans will definitely appreciate it.
4. Production
Speaking of money, your income is crucial
if you want to play with excellent equipment. Don’t
ever stop striving to improve your sound value. These days,
there are many ways to incorporate modern technology into
your music to make it simpler. The use of a tablet has the
audio production capabilities that would have cost a substantial
amount of money ten years ago. Now, it’s a matter of
sifting through which $10 app is the best.
Improving your sound on a budget is an essential
component to making it as a performer.
It may also be time to think about adding
more visuals to your live music performance. Monitors and
screens are fairly cheap these days that it would be relatively
easy to incorporate a few, or perhaps you could look into
pyrotechnics, venue permitting. (See above, Re: Showmanship)
5. Range
Finally, you can’t forget to keep improving
yourself. Take more lessons. Keep practicing. Shoot for that
high or low note you could never quite hit.
Listen to more music, too! There’s an
entire world of music to explore, and you never know when
you’ll come across something in the archives that will
inspire you to make your next great hit. Too many bands fall
into a rut, writing the same basic songs over and over.
Continuing to evolve as a band by expanding
your range of musical talent will only bring positive benefits
and success in the end.
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