Performance Tricks for the Shy Looper

["Rick Walker/Loop.pooL" <GLOBAL@cruzio.com>]

This post about making eye contact with
audiences made me want to share a simple
trick I learned about performing from
an elementary school teacher.

I vascillate in my performances between being
really quite shy and being really 'out there'
as a performer.

If you pick an audience member in the last row
(this is, of course in a more intimate setting)
and stare INTENTLY straight at their third eye (forehead for
all you non-hippies out there........lol)
you give the illusion that you are really connecting
deeply with someone in the audience.  You can even switch which
person you stare at.

Only the person you are staring at knows that you aren't staring at them,
but I've asked those people about it afterwards and found that they have
just assumed that I was concentrating.

***********************************

I also think it is extremely important to force oneself to
look at your equipment as little as possible.

Even with guitar players (not looping), it is more effective
if they steal glances at their fretboards instead of just staring at them 
in
performance.

and while we're at it, singers:   point that mic up towards your mouth
instead of having it point straight at you.   this is
not even the most optimal placement of a microphone but it allows the
audience to see your mouth move as you sing (as opposed to being completely
blocked out by the mic when it is
parallel to the ground).

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and as long as I'm on a rant,   tapping your foot with your hell
instead of with your toe  looks a lot more grounded and
'funky'.....................(please pardon my funk/soul dance band
influences).

*****************************
oh yeah, and mark hamburg, when the lights are so strong that you can't see
the audience:   pretend you can and stare intently out into the lights, 
with
your gaze just below where the intensity is greatest (so as not to blind
yourself)..........stare, in essence, at where you think that last person 
in
the audience is.............people cannot tell that you are not connecting
directly with them when you do this and it is a very effective little
performance trick.

yours, Rick