At the beginning of each semester in this music education class, we have the students write down all of their favorite performances and why they were their favorite performances. Then, we have them write down all their least favorite performances and why those are their least favorite performances. And then we have these tools to look at for the rest of the semester that really shape what we think is good and what we think is not so good about certain performers.
Before you go on stage, you should be able to look at this list and say, “Oh, well, I’m not going to not care about what I’m doing,” or “I’m not going to be off key when I’m performing,” or “I’m not going to just stand there and look at my feet.” If these were things we didn’t like about other people, then we shouldn’t do them ourselves.
One of those qualities I see year after year is that students don’t like it when the person doesn’t feel into it. What we want to focus on is really getting lost in your music and what can make you do that. Some people need the music to be really loud on stage. Create that for yourself. Tell the sound engineer you need it louder.
Some people say, “I don’t want to hear myself that much. It takes me out of it.” Then, turn yourself down on the monitors. These are all things that we learn so that we can really feel as lost as we can be on that stage and in the music and exactly where we want to be in the music industry.