This blog post delves deeply into the considerations and attitudes amateur band performers should adopt to achieve genuine communication on stage.
I am not a professional. Nevertheless, the university band I sing in aims to perform. Of course, a small university club isn’t solely a group dedicated to performances. However, at least the club’s public image is revealed through performances, and I am unquestionably a performer standing before an audience. The term ‘performer’ carries affection and passion for the entire process—planning, preparing, and executing a performance—beyond just the moment of playing music on stage.
Becoming a performance performer. It’s not about directly conversing with others, submitting articles somewhere, writing short diaries on SNS, or holding candles on the street. It’s about communicating with others in a unique way. It means becoming someone who conveys my voice through music and creates a ‘performance’. That is precisely what it means to become a performance performer. Becoming a performance performer is about facilitating ‘communication’ with the audience.
Looking back now, I remember finishing that first performance, which was nothing but embarrassing, and then crying my eyes out once the tension finally eased. The process of forming a band with like-minded freshmen, without a single senior, and preparing for a performance was never easy. Maintaining the club by recruiting juniors was also a continuous struggle. Barely holding together a club that felt like it could collapse at the slightest wobble, I constantly wrestled with the club’s identity as a ‘band.’ The question, “What is this band that I’m so obsessed with?” circled my mind daily. After a year of intense contemplation, I reached the conclusion: “A band is a performing club, and a performance is a promise to the audience.”
A promise to the audience. This promise holds meaning beyond the mere fact of when and where we perform. In performances where performers on stage engage in idle chatter or throw out incomprehensible jokes, merely showcasing their singing or instrumental skills, it’s hard to find consideration for the audience. A performance on stage without a message to convey, without the will to communicate with the audience, is nothing more than a simple ‘talent show’. If the audience feels alienated during a performance filled with incomprehensible foreign songs and love songs devoid of sincerity, it cannot be called a true performance.
Audiences are not people who exist merely to listen to my songs and clap. They are the final nail in the coffin of a performance; when the audience is excluded, the performance has failed. If I want to share exciting and joyful songs with the audience, I must strive to bring them genuine pleasure. If I wish to share hardship through music, I must find ways to comfort each other. If I simply want to share good songs, I must strive to find good songs. Yet all such deliberation ultimately begins with the question: “What voice should I convey to them?”
That said, the process of creating my own voice is no easy task. Due to my own lack of skill, I dare not bring songs I’ve written or composed myself onto the stage. But at the very least, in the process of selecting songs to perform, choosing tunes that performers can empathize with and enjoy together is something even amateurs can do. A friend who once stood on stage told me: performers must have ‘vibes’. If even I, conveying music on stage, feel no emotion or vibes whatsoever, that music will be nothing more than passing sound to the audience.
Of course, a performance should not become a platform where the performer simply imposes their emotions and voice onto the audience. All communication must be two-way, and this holds true for performances as well. Yet, it is not easy for the performer on stage to directly hear the voices of the audience below. Therefore, performances require special means of communication. The atmosphere and the audience’s response become the channels for this communication. The audience’s reaction to the music conveyed by the performer is relayed back to the stage through the venue’s ‘atmosphere,’ and we engage in dialogue mediated by the music and its emotions.
The performer must be responsible for communication within the performance. From the moment I decide to stand on stage, I become a performer who has made a promise with the audience called ‘performance.’ And that promise continues until the performance ends and the last audience member leaves the venue. A stage built solely on reactions like “Wow, this song is great!” without thoughtful consideration of what kind of stage to create may earn applause, but it fails to elicit genuine resonance. A performance without communication with the audience is a performance without an audience, and such a performance is incomplete. Putting deeper thought and feeling into constructing the performance is the most basic courtesy owed to the audience who took precious time to come see it.
A month ago, we performed our final show under the name “Active Duty.” It was our last performance before retirement, so we prepared with everything we had, but the tension peaked right before stepping on stage. To make matters worse, I couldn’t stop coughing, and my vocal condition was at its worst. While the guitar and bass tuned their instruments, I could hear my own heartbeat. Countless worries, conflicts, and efforts shared with the club during preparations flashed before my eyes. The long hours poured into preparing for this brief moment of communication, barely 30 minutes long, heightened the tension further. But as the drum beat began and I placed my mouth on the mic, my tightly closed lips parted. The trembling from nerves transformed into the exhilarating shiver of music resonating throughout the entire venue. The trembling on stage was conveyed to the audience through the music. Having become an actor performing the music, I shared the song, and the audience, swaying in response to this music, sent shivers back to the stage. The words, “I prepared this hoping to share a story we could all empathize with together,” might have been unnecessary.
After the performance, audience reactions like “It felt like you were telling my story” showed my efforts to create a performance for connection were not misguided. The trembling thrill that made my heart race was conveyed through the microphone, and I am certain the audience resonated with this tremor too.
Someone might ask me, “Does a small university band really need to ponder such deep questions while performing?” I would answer yes. Whether professional or amateur, I am not someone who performs just to show off my skills. I am a performer. A performer is someone who creates a performance. A performance is a space filled with songs I empathize with, songs I want to share, stories many can relate to, and stories I wish to share together. And within that performance exist ‘me,’ ‘the audience,‘ and ‘us.’ The performer conveys music from the stage, and the audience responds with their reactions below it. That very space is a place of communication. If even one among the many ‘us’ can lie in bed late at night and recall the performance, then my communication has succeeded.
