How To Improve Your Stage Presence 

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

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

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

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.

1. Eliminate silence Classical musician: ight imma head out

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...

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

maybe make a samurai gutarist video on starting a band?

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

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

I wear combat boots with a frilly dress on stage. I'm a man

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

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!

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

_"Have good outfits"_ *Pantera has left the chat*

The answer is one and only, guitar spins.

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.

Two more: no noodling, no tuning (with volume)

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...

1. headbang

Or as Iggy Pop would say "when in doubt, whip it out" :-)

But but... the crazy things I wear on stage ARE what I would wear to Applebees.

I feel like none of these apply to drummers lmao

How to improve your stage presence 1. Look up AC/DC Let There Be Rock Paris 1979 2. Watch and learn

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!

I hear that Samuraiguitarist guy is a pretty cool dude.

OMG did you really see a guy reading his lyrics? It's not even amateurish, it's just a disrespect to everyone at a gig. Imagine watching a play with actors reading off the script. It's just...arghh

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.

Wait a second... I think I heard this guy on the radio the other night! I remember it because his song was on right before my favorite commercial for "Spouse be gone".

Us high school bands tend to not move whilst playing our instruments at all, making us look depressed, and also we wear the most casual of clothes! :D Spoken because I've seen it myself in 2018! Seriously though, even in high school, I try to play as a professional. For one, it's rather fun to pretend your Jimi Hendrix for a start, and two, I think it's more fun, and the audience thinks it more fun to watch as well.

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!

i wanted to check out my new guitar....

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.

Serious question. I’m blind and don’t quite get some of the visual aspects of this. How can I work on that?

How about a video on learning to move around while still playing accuratley? Im dyspraxic and this is something I struggle with

10. NEVER discuss politics /religion or anything divisive.. on stage or on social media. Thank you for this post, I sent it to all my bandmembers as back up to everything I’ve been saying for the last year

10. Be Slipknot

When I had my first band in 1994. I had to learn these things the hard way. Nowadays kids can simply click on a video like this one and some will STILL bitch and moan about crap, when in fact they have all this wonderful information out. Good video Sensei! :)

1. Watch Frusciante on Slane Castle

Does anybody else notice how his audio clip on the Laptop slowly grows in the background?

Samuraiguitarist: use props my head: stonehenge 😄

I can't wait until I get into a band, the thing is people at my school (I'm 16) aren't into the hard/heavy rock I am into - any tips on finding people who are into the same genre as me and want to be in a band? Your videos are so informative and the most entertaining guitar videos on the site

number 8 reminded me of a local band I saw a couple years ago, a lot of their music had a kinda dark and unsettling kind of vibe, and they also had a mascot sitting on one of their amps: a dismembered baby doll. fucking terrifying, man. it suited the vibe so well and imo made a disproportionally large contribution to the experience, just sitting there lookin creepy af

Some stuff I've learned on tour over the past couple of years, a lot of which you touched on: Always have fun on stage! Even if you're having a bad night, the band fought, the room is empty, sound sucks, whatever. Make the most out of your time on stage and find something fun about it. If it's a light crowd, I use those nights to introduce new ideas into my improvisations, spark spontaneous jams on stage, and make goofy faces at my band mates from time to time to get them to perk up and have fun. Creatively turn your bad night into a fun night. Also, yeah, you want to be dressed cooler than everyone else in the venue but it shouldn't look like a costume. When my band walks into a room, everyone knows we're the band. We all have our style about how we dress, but we're all dressed to make a good impression and represent ourselves and our collective style. I disagree about the silence thing, though. I think little pockets of silence in between songs accentuate the way songs begin. If I see a band that has drum beats or samples or jams in between EVERY song, I get bored/overwhelmed really fast because it's just constant sound. I will say that you want to avoid noodling between songs, looking generally anxious, dicking around, and wasting time. Silence is okay for a few seconds or a minute, just wear it with purpose. It shouldn't look like you're unprepared. Sometimes, our singer will make a joke out of taking a second to pick up and tune his guitar before a song with something like "These guys have to wait on me to tune to get started. Ya know, lead singer stuff" and that stuff gets a laugh. If you mess up really noticeable on a song, just keep going and don't make a big deal out of it. Don't apologize, don't mention it, nothing. It happens. Just laugh it off and keep going. Sometimes you have to sound check right before you start playing. Throw and go. In those cases, I always do quirky stuff for sound check that grabs people's attention. No noodling and no lame comedy sketch, but I've played a medley of "All Star" by Smash Mouth and "La Cucaracha" to check my guitar and quoted funny Donald Trump quotes for my mic check. "Fake news" is way more interesting that "Mic check 1 2". I like to be quick and professional about sound check but I always look for something to make it less grating and annoying and boring a process for an audience to sit through. Nothing looks worse to me on stage than arrogance, cheesy planned banter/audience participation, being rude to a crowd/soundman, sending out vibes of friction between band mates, trying to show eachother up, forcing yourself to run around just to put on a "good show", dressing like a slob, noodling during sound check, noodling between songs, and staring at your instrument/music/iPad/girlfriend the whole show.

Practice the banter? How about work on learning how to talk to a crowd and improvise that so you can focus on the music? I agree with the music parts but not the over planning and winking at the crowd etc. A lot of this goes outside of who I am and just sounds like "How do to be a corny band 101"

watch Jaco Pastorius and take notes

Just tried utilizing these tips at my last show over the Friday the 13th weekend and we had the whole place buzzing! Sold a lot of CDs after the show as a result probably. It was just overall one of our better performances if not our best. So thanks a lot for these tips!

Getting off the chart was something that really helped me. I still have it handy for when someone randomly calls a Beatles tune I haven’t heard in 5 years but it’s no longer necessary for most of my shows (aside from live band karaoke but that’s a different story). Getting off the charts means you’re actually spending time PLAYING and being there. Nothing says “this sucks” more than watching a performer whose eyes are glued to his charts

1:56 Adam Jones should consider this.....

dude great vid, share it with my band mates si they can understand why I always try to do things differently. Black Lawless (WASP) once said. people listen with their eyes....

This video was both exceptional advice and a great indicator for where I’m at. I definitely have the banter and flamboyancy amongst other things down but I really have to get more physical with things.

it's amazing how long you can keep your eyes straight forward and righto into the camera. I realyy need to train this. Thank you for this vid.

Just go watch any video of Bruce Springsteen live and study how he commands the stage, the band, the crowd, etc. No singer/guitarist ever did it better live than the Boss.

I'm thinking of singing in front of my school for the talent show anyone have any tips? 😬

Different bands do things differently. Eye contact definitely is not a necessity. Singers like Maynard are more engaged with the music than the audience. He even had a stage where he would sing in the dark so he could focus all of his energy on his notes.

I want to see live show with sensei.

The outfits tips was so on point. I have seen countless morons wearing flip flops and floral vacation shirts with cargo shorts that are excellent musicians but kills the whole vibe of seeing a rock and roll tribute act.

Awesome video! I think these tips are also helpful for giving academic lectures and courtroom performance as well.

The Ipad one is the one I hate the most. I am stuck with two guys who use them for lyrics. They just won't memorize the songs...

My friend and his band got themselves the same Adidas sweaters in five different colours for each band member, pretty simple idea but everyone thought it was fun

I came here for tips to add better moves to my stage presence without letting it throw off my playing. Like if I do certain jumps or move around too much, it could throw off my timing

Step 1: Be Janick Gers Step 2: ??? Step 3: ??? Step 4: ??? Step 5: Profit

When I was studying for my Bachelors of Music the vocal tutor was constantly telling the vocalists (all of whom lacked stage presence) to watch Freddy Mercury videos and watch what he does, nothing worse than a singer who just stands there like a lump.

Hello Sir . first of all thank you so much for sharing ur lessons with us . I'm now a better guitar player , but I'm still having a big issue which is counting and singing along with the guitar , i tried every method and it did not work . I really need help . much appeared Sir

GG Allin. Nuff said.

Watching this in 2020: "heh, sike.."

We watched this in our music class

I've been doing live gigs for many many years.. and this advice is still very valuable and helpful.. thanks Sam.. I just subscribed!

You could do this, OR you could be John Petrucci and let your incredible skills do the talking. Unfortunately, there is only one john petrucci.

Sensei, I just wanna say, I find your face absolutely beautiful and aesthetically pleasing to look at. It's almost perfectly symmetrical. Your eyes; your nose; your hair and beard framing your face; your EYEBROWS; the contrast between your skin and eyes+hair... I love it. That's all. Thank you. (- 人 -)

KoRn utilizes the dead silence and actually has one of the best shows I've ever seen

No. 10: Watch Devin Townsend performances and do what he does.

Thanks for these useful information.

Puma racecar driving shoes are the ultimate shoes for both guitarists and drummers.

Well, actually. This is something I don't entirely agree with. Also depends on genre. Of course you should be engage and put passion in your music. But "performing" in sense of faking something or being an entertainer to me is wrong. Music is (in best cases) something very personal, so I think you should get your personality across. I also think it's more than entertainment and party. For example I'd wear exactly what I always wear. I would be myself. I hate it when there is too much of a "show" going on and the music almost becomes secondary to the "event". Play with passion and professionally (transitions between the songs) but just be yourself and dont overdo it by pretending to be a pop star (unless you are). If you have something funny or interesting to say do it. But if you are an unknown band from nowhere noone wants to hear stories. Make the music count, everything else should be second.

I think Richie Sambora has the best stage presence as a guitarrist of all time. Its just different, very "himself" movements

"You can be a bit flamboyant than you normally would" This one made me laugh since I casually wore a straight jacket in public for a few years. I can probably get away with just being myself.

I saw steve vai two weeks ago and I was able to see the extraordinary presence steve has.... you can actually feel the energy Steve transmits. Amazing.

Can anyone direct me to a video on how to play heavy music and move wildly, still being able to play guitar accurately? I know there are bands WAY more wild than these, but what I can think of right now is two bands I like a lot: Korn (especially the old days) and Turnstile.

The second show I played I started at the bar with a wireless mic in my back pocket this hot girl wouldn’t give me the time of day. Then the band started playing I stand up start singing making my way through the crowd and the show goes off without a hitch and after that girl comes to ask if she can carry my gear. Yep that happened

Have my 1st real show on Wednesday. Its in NYC (lower manhattan) at The Delancey and they put me as the headliner and gave me a 45minute set. I'm about to be like Goku fighting Jiren and mid show I'll go ultra instinct and fuck Jiren aka the crowd up. Lol. On a serious note though, wish me luck.

My first show was at a christian scout camp I was reading of my phone for lyrics but they loved it lol!

10. Don't say, "We take requests." You'll end up with a line of people asking you to play songs that are nowhere near what you're actually planning to play next. Unless you're a human encyclopedia of songs, you're gonna have a bad time.

I legit act as if there’s an audience each time my band practices and I’ll talk to them and we go through our entire set list at least 2-3 times per practice and we most definitely move these are all great types of your into Skramz or Hardcore go to my page and watch my band’s vid for Spider Blood we’re called Zyrolifia

I been doing this all wrong fuck

if you have a certain vibe of stage presence you want to replicate, watch performances that you like and take note of things you thought were particularly interesting and personalize them.

My band struggles with number 1 badly. The problem is the lead man doesn't like to go through the setlist in order. He likes to "feel the crowd". It works out alright but I hate waiting between songs. You should add: Don't end every song dragging out the last note and watching the drummer for the final cue. That's my band's second issue.

When you're practicing for a performance, how much time do you spend practicing each song individually vs. practicing the whole set together? For example, if you have 6 songs in the set, 3 you're pretty comfortable with and 3 you're just learning, do you do the whole set over and over again? Do you take time to focus on the 3 you're struggling with? How do you practice this so you can give the best show?

as for little bits of body language, for example a smile after a solo: Ghost is a good example of this, and I love watching a recording (it's not even a professional one) from their concert at Hovet in 2017 for that exact reason, even though there are a few mistakes throughout the performance as the musicians were new hires at that point. In Body and Blood, there's a short bridge type of solo and during the solo, the singer sort of moves to the solo with the guitarist (this is something generally done by Ghost) and the sexually implicit nature of it creates an extra point of entertainment while not taking attention away from the guitarist. This is important for singers: Find something to do during the solo that complements the solo and further helps focusing the attention on the musician playing the solo. In one live performance of Through The Fire And The Flames by DragonForce, the singer engages the crowd, gets them to clap and so on while the guitarists are playing that long solo. Big NO. Back to the Ghost performance: After the solo is over, the guitarist does a little gesture. I don't know how to describe it, but it suits the situation perfectly and gives a nice ending to an awesome solo. Towards the end of the show, they played the song Ritual (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-34kdKDCbM74.html), and at the end, they typically repeat the last phrase/little sequence of chords. But at this show, the lead guitarist forgot to start with that right after the end of the song. So he finishes the song, looks at the crowd, does a "Look, I played a solo, wasn't it good?" kinda gesture while the singer is to the side gesturing at him to repeat the last chords. He looks to his side demonstratively, sees the singer, does a little "oh I forgot!" kinda gesture and then plays the last chords. It worked so perfectly that I sometimes doubt it was unintentional.

No. 3 is great. I've been really wanting to do that with that with my solo acoustic show especially now that I'm adding live looping to it...

I had my first show over the summer I remember how nervous I was but after the first song played all my jitters went away. The energy of the crowd gave me way more confidence. Thanks for your advice bro.

I go to a music focused upper secondary school filled with talented musicians. The biggest issue the first years have is that they are very talented, but are too caught up in playing perfectly, that they lose touch with audience. They just stand there, staring at their instruments trying not to fuck up. Sure, it sounds very professional but is just meh. My first advice is not to take yourself too seriously. If you go with the mentality to have fun and entertain, I promise the gig will be much better than if you go with the mentality that you have to play perfectly. We usually do ridiculous shit on stage, because it makes it fun for everyone and makes the performance look and feel much better. People shouldn't be afraid of mistakes, you just have to learn to play it off.

.........Gigs are "showmanship"......music, but also "showmanship".......

I just hate how 90% of musicians are wearing black on stage

Damn it I love my Applebee’s zebra print boot cut slacks

BRILLIANT, VERY HELPFUL :-)

Here's a suggestion. Get a real, well-paying professional job. Then play like you don't give a shit, cuz you don't have to. Thx. ;-)

It's great to know that other people take notice of these kind of stuff. My band mates don't and it's really an important thing to get into

Best advice practice the entire show and I add get out of your comfort zone

Good video. I subscribed, Bro. Gotta share this with a couple of guitarists I know.