78: 5 Aspects of Body Language for Improved Stage Presence
With Michael Webster
Hello! Today we're going to investigate the five aspects of body language that will enhance your communication with an audience when you speak from the stage.
Awareness of body language will also improve your musical performance.
For example, there was a Harvard study that played recordings of a musical competition for a randomly selected audience. The audience was divided into three groups. The first heard audio and saw video. The second heard the audio only without the video. And the third saw the video and heard no sound at all. Surprisingly, it was the third group that was best able to predict who the prize winners might be.
Today, I brought my clarinet with me to give you a very abbreviated version of how I might introduce the Stravinsky Three Pieces: For Clarinet Solo, followed by playing the first phrase. Then we can discuss the five aspects of body language that you may have witnessed.
When I was about nine years old, my parents gave my sister and me some educational recordings, two of which have stayed with me to this day. The first was called Stravinsky and the second Licorice Stick. And whenever I played the Stravinsky Three Pieces: For Clarinet Solo, those two early influences intersect.
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*Short Clarinet Performance*
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The first aspect is posture. On my very abbreviated imaginary stage, I attempted to walk out with purpose in my stride, and I held my head over my shoulders. The second is facial expression. I smiled, not the pasted on grin of someone who's being told to say cheese in a group photo, but a natural smile because I am happy to be sharing music with others. Third, we have eye contact in a hall. I look directly at the audience and of course here I'm looking directly at my video camera. Next, we have gesture. I hold the clarinet in either hand, freeing up one hand for gesture. And finally, we have proximity. How close are you to the person you're speaking with?
I'd like to go through those five in reverse order and relate them to everyday human interaction, because after all, we're telling a story, we're not giving a lecture.
Proximity, of course, is how close are you? And in conversation, the closer you can be, the more intimate the conversation can be. But there's a limit. We have a phrase, “in your face”, which we use literally and figuratively. For someone who's being overly aggressive on stage. However, the opposite is true. We have the problem of distance, and I can't very easily just jump off the stage to be close to the audience. So the next best thing is to take a step or two forward to indicate my accessibility. A music stand can act as a barrier between you and the audience. So I highly recommend that you never speak from behind a stand, that you always step to the side and or slightly forward.
Gesture is an important part of human interaction. If a comedian does an impersonation of a political figure, gesture is an important part of the act. Vocalists and pianists have the advantage of having both hands available for gesture. The rest of us have to carry an instrument, and it's particularly challenging for string players. The worst thing that can happen would be for you to drop your Strad on the stage while you're gesticulating wildly. So I recommend holding the bow and the instrument in one hand, freeing up the other hand for gesture without wielding a bow as though it were a sword.
Next, we have eye contact. In a hall, it's important to look toward the back of the hall rather than toward the front. In conversation, if someone doesn't meet your eyes, it can be very disconcerting. And at a concert, it's just as disconcerting for someone who's speaking not to make their eyes available to the audience. So if you look at the rear, everyone in the audience will have a feeling that you're speaking directly to them, especially if you scan very suddenly back and forward from left to right. I highly recommend that you never use notes when you're speaking to an audience, so you can have that degree of eye contact.
Facial expression can color our words. The same sentence can be spoken with two different facial expressions and mean something quite different. In general, we want to look friendly and available to our audiences. But if we're talking about Beethoven going deaf or Schubert dying young, our facial expression has to mirror the emotion of our content.
Then we have posture. I attended a yoga class recently where a student asked the question, Is it really necessary for me to do this exercise where I'm lengthening the front of my spine? And the teacher's response was, If you are a human being in a gravitational field, yes. With music stands, cell phones, and the computer screen that you're watching all beckoning us to stoop forward in our sedentary society, it's really important on a daily basis to remind your shoulder and back muscles to keep your head over your shoulders. Not only will that make you look more confident, but it actually will improve your mood.
The next time I will go into more detail about these five aspects and also get a little bit into stage presence in general and how to use your voice.
In the meantime, stand tall.