Just imagine you are on stage at a local sweaty nightclub, the lights sizzling hot and the sweat pouring out of your body as you strike the first few chords of your opening rock anthem. The lights over the audience are dim and you can’t really tell what’s up with the crowd, whether or not they are feeling your music. It seems the people look bored and start wandering around talking. Why isn’t anyone feeling your music? Could it be that you just plain suck? Or was it the fact that an hour before you took the stage the whole club saw you diss some fans who wanted to talk to you, and watched as you left your girlfriend hanging out at the table alone while you cavorted with some of your groupies?
How the audience sees you will largely impact the success of your music and your music career. How the audience perceives you depends on two different factors. The first factor is your own personal conduct. That’s right, your behavior can either have a positive or negative effect on your music career. If you are renowned for treating your friends, fans, and family like crap you’re not going to have a very large fan base. And the fans you do have are more than likely just other jerks like you who have now found a hero in you. If you treat your fans well, conduct your behavior respectfully, and dedicate yourself to doing the best job you can, then the audience will have a positive perception of you and your band instead of a negative one. People who have a positive view of you will be more apt to buy your album and support you playing live.
The other factor that will determine how your audience perceives you is how you market yourself and your band. If you market yourself to a specific audience and use tactics to try and fit in that mold you might get pigeonholed into that particular genre and never be able to break out. Or if you use a gimmick, such as your skin color or a certain political message you believe in, people will see you as either racist or socially aware. How you advertise yourself plays a huge role in how the whole world sees you, so be careful how you market yourself.
Filed under: Lessons, Performance, relationships | Tagged: band, band image, image
