I was quite nervous prior to the presentation. Mainly because the night before I had abruptly decided to perform with my guitar that I had not played at all for 2 months. This decision was based on my wish to develop myself and to become more confident as a musician even despite any possible technical issues and a very short time to prepare (as development happens only when you step out of your comfort zone, this was a perfect opportunity).
As expected, my guitar playing was far from perfect, despite doing my best to catch up on all the lost time the night before and in the morning, but this deadline made me get back to playing and motivated me to keep learning, as there are only a few things more frustrating than your body (my fingers that had lost their strength in this case) not being able to follow your brain’s commands quick enough.
To my surprise, I greatly enjoyed performing that day. Mainly because, for the first time, I had heard some of the other students really put their heart into the music and was honoured to be able to experience that. As the last presenter, I could gratefully share one of my creations with them all as well.
While speaking about my past experiences, current projects, music style and future goals, I found it quite interesting how comfortable I felt thanks to having filmed two video blog posts in the previous month discussing topics surrounding musicianship (Black, 2016). I had analysed my body language, voice, intonation and word choices quite carefully in the context of social science researches while filming the content for these blogs and therefore video 2 had a huge improvement over video 1 (filmed 1 week apart from each other). The presentation was an interesting chance that enabled me to try my new social and communication skills out live.
When it comes to developing my future presentations, I aim to practice performing and guitar playing more, “because you play like you practice” (Sutton, 20015), so that I would feel more comfortable and confident in front of an audience. I will also work on my public speaking, socialising and rapporting skills (keys to any successful presentation, speech, performance) by reading relevant material (for example “How to win friends and influence people” by Dale Carnegie) as well as watching tutorial videos and then applying them in real life (in work and social situations).
References:
Black, A. (2016) How to Discover Your Passion (How to Know If Music Is The Right Career Path For You). Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWGVjVuPK2g&list=PLI7VfbCY_SXI4uUCxVejkTZzMaKG9rv8s [accessed 21 December 2016].
Sutton, W. (2015) Rocket to the stars – improving speaking skills between songs Part 1 of 3. Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGx6L-GzmAY [accessed 21 December 2016].