Re: [Harp-L] Stage Presence

[Ken Deifik <kenneth.d@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Also, If there was a break in the song where I didn't play, I would just 
> stand motionless, both physical and music wise.

Frankly, if I'm not playing I find it polite to stand still and call no 
attention to myself.  Let someone else own the stage.  You were studying 
yourself in the video, and perhaps you wondered why you weren't doing 
anything when you didn't have anything to do.  Well, like I say, at that 
point you were doing right.

I'm sure more suggestions are going to come up because this is a terrific 
thread you've started.  Try everything that is suggested for when it's your 
stage.  Use the things that feel natural and work well on the 
audience.  Let your pardners have the focus when they're featured or you 
will lose their love.

Around 1975 a very young Steve Earle came to Nashville and was staying with 
the late, wonderful guitarist Champ Hood.  As fast as you could meet this 
skinny, shy kid and hear his songs, you knew he was a very, very special 
artist.  Guy Clark put him in his band for some shows and introduced him 
for a few songs, and he was amazing.  He just stood there, looking down at 
the floor and knocked me over, as his songs gave him tremendous presence.

Ten years later, living in LA, another Nashville buddy and I suddenly 
remembered that kid who showed up in Nashville, and were sad that he had 
disappeared into the air.

Then suddenly he reappeared on the national scene, and the hype was that 
suddenly there was a "Country Springsteen."  He made a much anticipated 
appearance on some national television show to promote his first major 
label record.  Someone had told him he needed more stage presence, that if 
he was gonna be the Country Springsteen he was gonna have to move like 
Springsteen.  So he bounced around the stage like a stiff monkey.

Frankly, I thought he looked ridiculous, totally false, totally not himself.

I'm pretty sure this was not his doing, because he'd completely toned it 
down the next time I saw him perform, and had gotten real.  I guess he 
shouldn't have been staring at the floor, but frankly I thought that was 
the most powerful thing he could do.  Second most, and pretty close, is the 
way he performs now.

This is to say, if you are absolutely dead-on certain that just standing 
there while you play is not working, try lots of stuff.  Keep what 
works.  You won't have to do alot.  Find some impressive signature thing 
that you do at the beginning of your first solo of the night.  Grab your 
audiences' eyeballs.  But once you have their attention, grab their souls 
with your music.  Now and then do something that you have discovered works, 
and at first you SHOULD overdo it, and then dial it back until you find the 
place where your physical things keep things interesting.

During one show around 1957, while playing his hit Whole Lotta Shakin', 
Jerry Lee Lewis got so excited he stood up and knocked over his piano 
bench.  The audience went insane, completely wild.  Nobody could have 
followed him after that.

The very next show he played he stood up and knocked over his piano bench 
at exactly the same moment in the song at which he had done it the first 
time, and the audience went insane - even though this time it was a total 
contrivance.

After that Jerry Lee always knocked over the piano at the exact same 
moment, and it always killed.  I was at a music industry function in the 
mid-seventies, a room full of jaded execs and radio people, and Jerry Lee 
got up to do a few numbers.  I had read about the piano bench bit, and had 
seen it on film.  I knew it was coming.  So did everyone else in that 
room.  He wasn't even playing with his own band, and yet when he knocked 
the piano bench over this room full of grownup music professionals went 
insane, me included.  It's weird, it's one of those things that makes you 
lose control when you see it even if you have seen it before.

Interestingly, as great a showman as Jerry Lee is, he did interspreses a 
few bits between a whole lot of just playing beautiful piano and singing 
hits without much more monkey business.  People who have seen him often 
remember him as being a non-stop maniac, but I watched him closely a few 
times after that night, and the same bits killed me over and over, but he 
spaced them out with alot of straight playing.  He started with a great 
bit, did a few more through the show and of course ended with Whole Lotta 
Shakin', drove the audience wild with the piano bench, finished and got off.

Try everything.  When great accidents happen, the ones that get the 
audience on your side, make sure you can repeat them night after night 
because they are gold, and you will have achieved Stage Presence.

Ken