Five Ways To Improve Performance Skills

1. Time Yourself

If you know there’s a time limit - typically five minutes at an Open Mic night, sometimes more if you’re lucky or someone’s actually paying you to read! - then you should practise your set beforehand to check for time. This is particularly important if it’s live radio or you’re being recorded.

Decide what sort of introduction each poem should have, if any, and time that as well. Be strict with yourself, and remember, things always seem to take longer live. So if you get carried away with one introduction, cut the next one to keep within the time limit. This is not simply about good manners, though it never hurts to be polite to fellow performers. Organisers tend to look more favourably on those who observe their rules and stick to the time limit; if you work hard at being professional, they’ll start to see you as professional and may ask you back as a feature act.


2. Know Your Material Well

If you can’t or won’t memorise your poems, at least try to be as familiar with them as possible. That way, you’re less likely to lose momentum when you glance up from the sheet and down again, and should be able to find your place again without stumbling. It’s surprising how even a minor hiccup in the rhythm can throw the rest of the reading.

Be particularly aware of words on the ends of lines and how they connect to the word at the beginning of the next. Practising aloud will help you remember the ‘shape’ of the poem in performance, which is often different from its shape on the page.

But the best results come from knowing your work off by heart. There's simply no substitute for knowing them back to front and upside-down. Under pressure, your memory is often the first thing to go. So go through your pieces without the paper to hand as often as possible ... in the bathroom, in the garden, in the car.

To check your facial reactions, practise in front of a mirror, or - if that turns out to be too horrifying! - try to practise in front of a window, where you can at least catch your own ghostly reflection from time to time. This gives you a sense of the way you're moving and could help sharpen your performance.


3. Project Your Voice

You may think you don’t need a strong voice if there’s a mic available but this is a common mistake. The better the voice, the better the performance, microphone or no microphone.

You don’t need to be formally trained to improve your voice projection but you do need to take yourself seriously as a performer. That means changing the way you hold yourself at the mic, or at the front of the room if there’s no mic, so that your voice can emerge more cleanly. Slumping is not useful, nor is hunching your shoulders, keeping a fag in your mouth while you read, staring at the floor, mumbling into the sheet or book rather than over the top of it, and generally wishing you were somewhere else.

To improve voice projection in ten seconds, stand up tall out of your pelvis, take your hands out of your pockets - see, mum was right! - balance yourself with your feet square on the floor a little more than hip distance apart, and remember to sway on the balls of your feet rather than digging in your heels, which keeps you flexible and poised. Then pick a spot on the wall at the far end of the room - or focus on somebody’s face on the back row - breathe in easily through your nose and project your voice to that spot, bringing the sound up from as low down in your body as you can, without straining for volume. Try to imagine it rising up from your feet and resonating around the room.

Once your voice has improved, remember to work on your mic technique - don’t eat it and don’t hold it gingerly at arms’ length like a poisonous snake. Be warned, not all mics are the same; try not to go up first at a new venue, so you can see how the height of the mic stand is adjusted - particularly important if you’re either very tall or very short like me! - and get a feel for the sound system. Most importantly, watch how others use the mic and copy the best ones - practice makes perfect.

And don't think you can skip voice projection and get away with it. Not all venues have a microphone.


4. Stay Relaxed

Performing makes most people nervous. There’s nothing unusual or intrinsically bad about that; indeed, the adrenalin that accompanies stage fright is just what most performers need to kickstart their set. But while nerves can sharpen the senses, they can also make you forget vital things like how many poems you intend to read, what introductions or linking pieces you’ve prepared, and even how to breathe! Fear tightens your muscles, including your diaphragm - which you need in a relaxed state to keep your breathing deep, smooth and efficient.

Some people like to find somewhere private before a performance - the toilets are usually your best option at most venues! - and work on some relaxation methods. If your body is feeling tight, try 5 - 10 jumping-jacks or a minute of running hard on the spot. If your voice feels thin, drink some water - not too cold - and loosen your neck, shoulders and jaw muscles with some slow and gentle rolling exercises. Yoga is great for this, especially for the facial muscles. Try humming low down in your chest and belly, then expand the sound outwards in a sing-song note for as long as possible.

When you finally get to the microphone, start off with a light joke or some casual banter, remembering that it’s intended to relax you as much as the audience!


5. Use Visualisation Techniques

Successful sportspeople often use a technique called ‘visualisation’ to achieve previously unreached goals; they visualise the desired end result, then picture themselves achieving it. This can help performers as well, especially newcomers who are trying to build a reputation from scratch. Sometimes it can help to think of a performer whose work you admire, though without directly emulating their work or delivery, and ‘be’ that person while on stage. Basically, you think of their confidence and ease at the mic, and then try to reproduce it in your own delivery. This is often only needed at the beginning of a career and can be abandoned as soon as you feel comfortable behind a microphone.

Equally, it sometimes helps to develop a special ‘persona’, as many successful stand-up comics have done. That can help to relax people who feel embarrassed at the microphone and would prefer acting out a role. If this is the case, work out well in advance what sort of ‘persona’ would suit you. Try out appropriate outfits, voices, ways of moving and standing, and test out your new style of delivery, if possible, by performing to ‘safe’ audiences of friends and family, or at small club and pub gigs. Not everybody will need these techniques but they have a long and respectable history in stand-up and can be useful for putting novice performers at their ease.

A combination of these two methods sometimes works best, not going so far as to create a special persona but developing the ‘you’ that feels most confident on stage - which is not always the ‘you’ that walked in the door, but an enhanced version, ‘you’ as performer.