Your focus while playing live
 

I'm curious what other players visually focus on during a performance. Do you focus on anything specific like individuals in the audience or physical features of the venue? Or do you simply Get lost is the music or other parts of the auditory experience? if you're shy -- on your instrument or band mates?

It varies during the song... Definitely eye contact with various audience members comes into play, but as well (when not solo), smiles & connecting with band members is important. After all, we're sharing the song!

But I'd never want to exclude the people I'm playing to! Sure, I might have a moment during a song of shut eye while emoting through a line or savoring a riff..., but eyes open and connecting most of the time is par for the course!

;)

(In my younger, single days, you can guess where my eyes were most often focused - the best looking single gal in the room!)

Incoming thrown objects.

^^^^Best response yet!!! I look around the room and find a few attentive folks to focus on. I find if I do that and start talking to them then others will join in and my circle in the room starts to grow. Basically I'm winning over the room a few tables at a time.

The pretty waitress with the nice beer jugs or something similar.

Another great response!

Seriously, though.....I tend to close my eyes quite a bit......done this for so long that it is pretty automatic for me.

For me it really depends on where I'm playing and whether I'm playing solo or with a group.

When I sing in church I focus on the lyrics in front of me but also on the other musicians and singers in the group. Since I play instruments and sing as well as lead the group, I have to convey a lot with nods and body language, but I'll also go off-mic and sotto voce to give directions to people when needed.

Fortunately, the bassplayer/multi-instrumentalist who stands beside me in church is a superb all-around musician, and we've been playing together for more than twenty five years, so we've got something close to telepathy going on. That helps a great deal. Our pianist is a relatively new hire, just over a year with us now, but he's also a very good musician and also responds well to non-verbal cues.

As for the rest of the group, some are very alert and some are not, so sometimes it's like trying to herd cats.

Among all that I still have to sense where the congregation happens to be, and how to shift musically when needed. In this regard it's little different than playing in front of an audience in a secular venue. I'm more constrained in terms of how I can change gears, obviously, but if I can tell that an upcoming piece that's scheduled simply isn't going to work, whether it fell flat during our warm-up or it just seems wrong for that moment, I can and will announce a change to the congregation.

I'm very fortunate in having clergy that understand and allow me to do that. They let me handle the musical aspects of the service and don't second guess me, which is one of the main reasons I've been there as long as I have.

Singing in a non-religious setting is different, obviously. I don't use a music stand or read lyrics off an Ipad, it's all memorized.

When I'm singing solo my visual attention is mainly on the crowd, what they're doing, how they're responding, and what I should sing next. Unlike a lot of performers I rarely use a set list, as I've found I can get a better response if I just wing it and select my songs based on the mood of the crowd.

So when playing solo I'd guess that perhaps 80% of my visual focus is on the audience and 20% on my instruments, which might go 70/30 if I'm playing more intricate music.

Even when you're playing in a darkened theater and can barely see the audience, it's important to look their way. It's very difficult to connect with an audience if you don't look at them; basically you have to be a near-genius to get away with that.

Of course, if you have a mind-blowingly beautiful voice, you can stand there with your eyes shut and sing your heart out. Most non-musicians simply respond more fully to the human voice than they do to instrumental virtuosity, however much that might irritate the virtuosi among us.

Now, playing with a group is a different thing. I'd guess that in those situations I look at the crowd, the rest of the band and my instruments each about a third of the time. In performance it's important to continually maintain eye contact with other band members, unless you're all reading off sheet music together.

Which I generally don't do outside of church.

So, short version: maintaining eye contact with the audience is equally as important and probably more important than maintaining eye contact with the people you're playing with. But both count for a great deal.

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller

Elmicko in Tennessee wrote:

Yep, good basic barroom strategy there. Saying nice things about the waitresses usually helps, too, because the more those women like you the more the crowd will, too.

I learned that indirectly from the late, great Jethro Burns:


When I was living in Chicago and playing Irish music for a living, my roommate and musical partner's prime instrument was mandolin. He took mandolin lessons from Jethro Burns, who told him that the first thing you have to do when playing music in a new place was make friends with the waitresses. The owners/managers are actually less important in terms of getting the crowd on your side. Jethro said:

"When people sit down at a table before you start, the first thing they'll ask the waitress is: "How's the band?" If the waitress is indifferent or says something negative, you're dead in the water before you even start. But if the waitress says: "Oh, they're really GREAT!" you're set."

So we always applied that principle and it helped to an amazing degree.


Wade Hampton Miller

Do you mean, what do we think about or what we look at ?

Former - about who takes the next break, what's the first line of the next verse, or what is the next number,and ensuring that one of my bandmates isaware of whatever is hapening next.

Latter - I choose four or five ladies in the audience , spead arouind, and I look at them one after the other. I don't flirt, or stare or anythng creepy, and frequently one of them will be my wife (I do flirt with her).

If any of the ladies indicates that they are in any way uncomfortable, I simply find another in that part of the audience.

I tend to focus solely on my playing, even with an audience. (Particularly my right hand and even more so if I'm sitting down).

Not very rock n roll I know ......

I get visually lost in the crowd, or did when I was out and about. People do themselves up garishly these days what with the ink, piercings, apparel, coiffures, other clownscapades and attention-trolling visuals. It isn't hard to get distracted by it. One evening a guy with a shaved head had a tattoo of a girls face on the back of his noggin. His drunk "buds" took turns laying wet ones on her (him) when he wasn't expecting it - or, maybe he was. I tend to get distracted by crap like that and forget what I'm doing. The audience is a lot different now, though, so acoustic offerings need to find the right venue. Wine bars with classy people acting classy until soused is kinda fun to watch. For me, it's a give/take thing. It's like driving a car down a congested city street. I pay attention. Never know what you'll see next. Gotta have a set list down pat for that, though.

I look around the room and try to spot my future ex-wife.

Keep a head count so you will have some idea what your cut of the till is likely to be....lol

I'll only play for a set fee, but it's always a good idea to keep track of the numbers, regardless.


whm