Stage-craft is an essential part of a good musical performance, and learning (and practicing) techniques for communicating with an audience will really help you to take your music to the next level.

You can learn most of these skills by watching and analysing the artists that you admire. Take as many opportunities as you can to watch live performances, and pay careful attention to how the musicians communicate to their audience, and how they move on stage to make their performance interesting and engaging to watch.

There are lots of ways to make your performance entertaining, and strategies vary depending on the type of music you're playing, the size of the venue and the type of audience you're playing for.

Look at the clips below, and for each video identify three ways in which the musicians make their performance engaging for the audience.

Below are some short youtube videos on how to improve stage performance in a variety of settings. What are the key ideas in each of these videos? 

Which ideas appeal most to you? 

How do you think you could incorporate these ideas into your own performance?

One challenge faced by almost every musician at some point in their careers is how to deal with nerves and anxiety when performing. Anxiety is complex, and can have a real impact on how well you perform, or how you feel about the experience. There are lots of techniques people use to help overcome the problems of stage-fright, that we will look at over the year. To get you started, here are a couple of really good videos on the subject.

What are the key points from each video?

What are some of the physical mechanisms going on when you experience anxiety or stage-fright?

What are 3 approaches to dealing with anxiety?