How To Improve Your Stage Presence

----------------------------------------­­­­­­­­­--------------------------------­-­-­-­-­-­-­-­-­-------------
----------------------------------------­­­­­­­­­--------------------------------­-­-­-­-­-­-­-­-­-------------
Instagram @samuraiguitarist
Snapchat @samuraiguit
----------------------------------------­­­­­­­­­--------------------------------­-­-­-­-­-­-­-­-­-------------
Guitarist/Songwriter/Samurai

Born in the Manitoba prefecture of Canada, samuraiguitarist, Steve-san Onotera, honed his discipline under the study of the country's most powerful musical sensei.

Bred on rock, raised on the blues, trained in jazz, samuraiguitarist creates incredibly innovative videos that showcase his talents on the guitar.

[kieranocallaghan]

'there's nothing worse than dead silence'
my band used to be called dead silence.
:(

[Culture]

"Practice as if you were the worst, play as if you were the best!"

[sandysingssongs]

10. NEVER apologise for making a mistake. All it does is draw attention to the fact that you made a mistake which may otherwise have gone unnoticed.

[archiethornton]

You missed smashing the guitar, throwing it in the crowd, starting a mud fight, and setting the stage on fire.

[idul]

1. Eliminate silence

Classical musician: ight imma head out

[hmarkison]

After being disgusted by ourselves in a video our manager took of us at a gig, we started practicing in front of mirrors. Started getting standing ovations after that. Wierd? Yes. But if you can't entertain yourself...

[TheAlienFromOuterEarth]

Sunglasses, it sounds like a joke, but it helps me so much as I'm shy and not having to look at the audience while
1.they don't know I'm not looking at them
2. You look like slash

[brianfuller]

1) Entertain- that's why you"re there.
2) Engage.
3) Be Dynamic
4) Be on and be prepared. Know the set!

[kat]

I have a show tomorrow and I’m 13 so it’s like my 2nd one so I’m pretty nervous. The band is playing a bunch of AC/DC songs. I need to be more aggressive with my playing and my stage presence for the show. This helped a lot, thank you

[fryingwiththeantidote]

My dad has been a rock/ heavy metal guitarist for about 38 years and his biggest advice to me was the PROJECTION of your playing. He had a story about Jimmy Page playing with the firm. He went to the show with some friends got some drinks and sat down. About 20 minutes later the lights went down. The audience was just talking, drinking and facing away from the stage. But then at one moment everyone just went completely silent turned around and there was jimmy on stage. He said he just felt his presence there immediately. Then he counted off and fucking leveled the place.This is an art form, projecting your mind and presence onto the crowd is almost as important as learning to play the instrument itself. In fact, your technique and playing should be directly in service to this skill. There's a reason rock guitarists play mostly simple music, because you need to fucking MEAN it. It should be just as mental intensive as playing classical or jazz and if it's not you're doing it wrong. It sounds very spiritual and metaphysical, but if you can develop this skill you'll find it works. I've seen my dad do it time and time again, you must be captivating. You can tell immediately if a musician is really in the zone and focused. You have to put your shadow out into the world, you should be able to *intimidate*. I find metal screamers are very good at this, I remember seeing a deathcore band and the vocalist jumped off of the stage right into my face and I was just terriefied of this dude. The way he moved, it felt like he wanted to kill me, and I believed him!! Dad also stressed that you can't be afraid to play HARD, in the climax of a solo you should play hard as you can without hurting yourself (though it wasn't uncommon for him to have his whole forearm black and blue after weeks of playing 2 shows a day). Strum hard, pick hard, you need to make sure your instrument gets as much emotional input through its signal as possible. But never ever lose control, and if you do fake that you have it all under your thumb. Make sure people know exactly what is on your mind. Performance is the ground zero of creativity, you need ALL of your mentality and senses in the moment.

[biscuitbuff]

maybe make a samurai gutarist video on starting a band?

[oddnoobswe]

I'm 14 and I'm doing about a 2 hour Gorillaz cover show as mostly a singer, but also a pianist, guitarist and playing the melodica. This helped me a lot, thanks!

[exarom]

10. Start the show like Flea Woodstock '99 to gain attention

[dos_mas_]

One of my most favorite things about writing a live set is creating blocks of 3-4 songs with killer transitions to make for 20-30min of seamless nonstop music. This is my favorite part about seeing bands live and seeing the little things that they did that changes the live performance of a song from the studio version. Jamaican and European reggae bands do this very well!

[UnthawedGuitarist]

Couldn't agree more, I once threw my pick in the crowd at a gig, the pick didn't even reach the first row (yeah I'd be a lame pitcher) but everyone was fired up (Also nobody noticed me fucking up because only the stage was lighted).
What I like the best on stage is just making fun of little mistakes or interracting with the crowd with humor. Of course, it has to feel spontaneous...

[deltavistastudio]

Perfect, down-to-earth tips.
My previous band could really stand to study this!
Between every song: "drummer tests his cymbals/toms/kick incessantly, bass player shows off riffs, test, test, test...feedback..." you get the picture.

[megankrumpak]

I played my first show last Saturday, with another coming up tomorrow. I can't tell you how nervous I was, but the energy got going the more we played, and it culminated when we covered I Love Rock n Roll and we got just about the entire crowd clapping along with the drum beat! It was a rush for sure! Thanks for the advice man, I'll definitely be taking it up for tomorrow!

[ChrystusBrzeczyszczykiewicz]

The answer is one and only, guitar spins.

[daisygrantt]

Remember the family guy episode where Peter was playing drums and making eye contact with the guitarist and they made too much eye contact and they had together married. Lol

[SideEffectsmusic]

One thing I try to implement is saying something specific to The venue, the crowd, or definitely the location, the town, or state you are in. if I am from out of town, I try to let people know that. I think it sounds cooler. Let people know how far you traveled. And then say something to make them feel special. Say something cool about the venue. About the people. Or about the town. I just think it was always cool when musicians would do that when they came through. bonus points if you can work it into one of your songs. I'm telling you, it's so little and stupid but whenever I hear a musician say something about my hometown, it stays with me forever really. I'm like oh so this is what people think about where I live! For me, it can be the stupidest thing. I can say how cool at venue is and how I can imagine a specific artist playing here. I can say something about the hospitality or I can say something about some burrito I had down the street or some street sign I saw.

totally agree with practicing what you're going to say. It's part of your show so it should be exactly what you practice. That way it doesn't really matter if you're nervous on stage or whatever. You're not really talking to the people, you're basically just going off a script like you would with a song.