Knowing how to hold yourself and what to do with things like your hands while performing on stage is a pretty important skill in my line of work. People call this stage presence.
But there's another, related, but also kind of opposite skill that's equally important, really. That's knowing what to do when you're onstage but not performing. Stage non-presence.
For a little while, in The Cedar, whenever Neil would do a solo thing, the rest of us would knit, onstage. That kind of worked, but probably wouldn't go over too well with some of my bigger freelance stuff.
A drummer friend told me once about a guy in his band who would crouch down into a ball with his hands over his ears when he wasn't playing. Then he got kicked out of the band.
It's a tough question, what to do when everyone is kind of but not really looking at you. Look at the performer, look straight ahead, look all over the place? Dance a bit? Stay very, very still?
Here's a video (probably off someone's phone. The audience singing is a nice perk) I found on youtube of my gig from this weekend of me mostly not-playing. These are the sorts of things I use as study guides. I think I wave my bow around way too much. But the subtle head-dancing is nice...
3 comments:
Wow, that is a tough question. I like the knitting thing - seems like a productive use of otherwise empty time. Maybe you could work on some writing? Or mark papers? At the very least do a Sudoku?
Canasta seems ok but why not dancing as long as this doesn't
happen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5bEVSxE55Q&feature=related
It's cool to see a video of you playing.
I think that people in business should follow your lead. Do you know how many times I went to meetings and the guys who were 'not-playing' were doing dumb stuff (sleeping, doodling, emailing) that took away from the performance? Of course, none of them curled up in a ball and put their hands over their ears.
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