This time we get down to undoing the myths in your head about stage presence by understanding the psychology of your audience…. And if you missed parts one and two of this blog series on stage fright you can read from the beginning here.
Psychological approaches to dealing with stage fright
Understand your audience
When I was younger, it was hard for me to understand the magic of live performance. It was just something I didn’t ‘get’. I used to listen to people talk about being transported by the performance of an artist, with a mixture of puzzlement and envy. The first stage of learning when you’re a singer is to get out there and experience how it can be at its best, as an audience member. At least then you know what you are aiming for and you have some good points of reference. Don’t worry too much for the moment about style and ‘never being able to do what they do, because you’re just not that kind of performer’. It is important that you feel transported and feel that magic for yourself as part of a huge crowd.
It is important to do this so that you understand your audience’s experience (partly to combat that unnatural and apparently hostile ‘silence’ I talked about earlier) and what they want from you. Do this whilst you are battling your nerves. Go and see other performers who are nervous (maybe at an open mic night or at a poetry club) and check your reaction to them as a member of the audience. Here are some truths about your audience for you to test out yourself as you do this.
Your audience wants you to do well.
How do you feel when you see a nervous performer? Aren’t you secretly rooting for them even though you feel helpless? Aren’t you disappointed if they can’t give of their best? The audience are almost always on your side, even as much as your best friend would be. They are generally not the impassive or even malicious ‘analysts’ or ‘critics’ you feared they were when you were onstage alone.
Your audience’s role is a silent one.
Therefore their only way of enjoying themselves is vicariously through you. Therefore you have to enjoy it as a performer first. As you know, ‘catching another’s feelings’ is common in everyday interactions. When someone else smiles, you feel like smiling back. When you see a couple gazing into each other’s eyes enraptured, you feel a bit soppy yourself. So, your audience are not really being critical (whatever your fears are). Even if some members are ‘cool’ critics apparently above being pleased, at their most human core, they actually need you to enjoy the performance, otherwise they can’t. By the way, cynics are secretly people who’ve been hurt and disappointed and are actually desperate for you to live up to their hopes. They don’t dare let this show in case you disappoint them again. Delight them and they’ll never forget it. As you sit in the dark as part of an audience, notice how relatively helpless you are.
You are never more alone, open, vulnerable and human as when you are sitting in the dark as a member of an audience.
Think about it. You are not conferring with anyone. Your reaction is yours alone and secret, unless you choose to share it briefly. Your experience of your connection with the performer for most of the performance is that of a one on one meeting. You are at your most childlike in many ways. You are free to cry or laugh and no one will think the worse of you. It is a very intense form of communication! The crucial thing to remember that is that this childlike state descends on almost every member of an audience as soon as the lights go down, no matter how exalted as a person they may be ordinarily. This is true for the MD of your record company as well as some megastar with a complimentary ticket. We are all children who long to be delighted. As a performer what you can take away from knowing this, is to talk to each audience, however huge, as if it were just one open, vulnerable, special person. This is the way to create charisma and intimacy. To check this, notice how you feel when a performer address you as a ‘crowd’, or doesn’t look at you, and how you feel when they appear to be telling you something special or intimate, as if you were their best friend. Notice how you feel when they appear to be vulnerable but not inhibited. Are you sympathetic? Delighted? Touched?
Part 4 to follow soon!
And if you’re experiencing nerves because you have to make a speech, present a prize, give a TED Talk or perform onstage, then do get in touch. I can coach you through the process. Contact me here or at