Your First Bardic Circle

Being some simple advice for a pleasing performance

Getting up in front of a crowd of people and performing for the first time can be a nerve-wracking experience. Some performers never outgrow that little touch of stage-fright! But you can prepare yourself to give a good performance and then relax a little, knowing that you're ready for whatever comes.

The Most Important Thing

If your audience cannot hear you, all else is irrelevant. Warm up your voice, project from the diaphragm, and sing or speak slowly and clearly.

Professional singers and even lecturers will warm up their voices. Many SCA entertainers skip this step. But if you do it, you'll find that you sound better and you can hit notes at the edge of your range more easily. If you are singing well within your range, or you are speaking, you may not find it absolutely necessary, but it's a good habit to develop early.

A simple warm-up is to sing a comfortable starting note, then sing a half-step up, and then up another. Then sing back down, using syllables like "Mi-mi-mi-mi-mi." Now move up a half-step (the second and fourth "mi" you sang) and do it again. When it gets harder to hit the higher notes, you can try opening your mouth a little and singing "Mo-mo-mo-mo-mo" instead. When you've gone as high as you can, go back to somewhere near your original starting point and sing down the scale in the same way.

Whether you are singing or speaking, you need to be loud enough. Practice "from the diaphragm" singing/speaking, because you do not want to shout. Shouting strains and distorts your voice, and will leave you hoarse the next day.

Place you hand in the center of your chest, just below your sternum (breastbone). Breathe in and out. Now, tense the muscle that's under your hand and breathe again. (If you're not sure if you have the right muscle, say, "Ha ha ha" out loud. Feel that? That's it.) Can you feel the difference? When I do it, I can hear my breath get louder. The muscle under your hand is your diaphragm, which by raising and lowering itself makes you breathe. (Hiccups are caused when the diaphragm spasms!) By "activating" your diaphragm and making it work a little harder than usual, you can greatly increase your volume.

If you can't get the hang of this technique, don't worry too much. It does take some practice! If you are at a traditional bardic circle, things will be pretty quiet, so you don't have to worry about singing against the noise of a feast hall. Still, the circle might be large and you want everyone to hear you. Don't ever fix your attention on a nearby friend and sing to them. They will hear you, but no one else will! Sing or speak to someone as far away from you as possible. Actually look around, find a faraway person, and begin your performance for them. You can already control your daily speaking volume from a whisper to conversational tones to very loud (but not shouting). Use that.

Nerves make most people speed up. A few songs and stories are better when they're delivered quickly, but most come across best at a regular conversational rate or slower. When you are nervous, a normal rate feels interminably slow! Practice your piece slowly, and chances are you will perform it just right.

Going a little slowly will help with your enunciation as well. If you are speaking or singing too quickly, your words can slur into each other and your audience won't get everything you're saying. Take the time to be clear.

Water is the best thing for vocal cords. If you are utterly convinced that you sing or speak better and are more relaxed with an alcoholic drink or two in you, stop after a drink or two. More than that and you can nearly guarantee that your pacing and enunciation are going to be poor.

The Second Most Important Thing

It's all about the attitude, baby.

If you get up to sing and apologize for your feeble skills, and shy away from the audience's eyes like a rabbit, you are only sabotaging your performance.

Your audience wants to like you. They are pleased as anything that you are going to entertain them. They do not want to have to pity you, and telling them ahead of time that you are no good will help them pre-judge you that way.

Never apologize, never explain. You do not want to introduce yourself by saying, "This is my first bardic." If you like, you may say that after your performance. But many new bards try to lower their audience's expectations, because they are worried that the audience won't like them all that much. No! If you tell them that you are no good, they will believe you. Let them have high expectations - you will rise to meet them!

You want to look relaxed, happy and confident when you perform. Like certain other activities in life, if you're having a good time, they'll have a good time.

In some circles, bards just get up and start performing. If that suits you, go to it. Otherwise, look into the audience and meet someone's eyes. Introduce yourself: "Good evening. I am Lady Teleri." Turn slightly and meet someone else's eyes and introduce your piece: "This is 'Barbara Allen.'" That's all you need. At most, you can include one or two more sentences that are directly relevant to the piece or the performance, but they must be interesting and positive. "It's an old English ballad" or "My grandmother used to sing it to me as a lullaby" are both acceptable examples. "I'm sorry if I get it wrong" is not.

When you perform:

Stand naturally. Don't shift around too much, but don't hold yourself rigid either.

Always move with purpose. Don't flail your hands around unless the song or story is calling for it. If you don't know how to move your arms, let them hang at your side or clasp your hands behind you or at your waist.

Don't fidget, especially with rings or other tokens.

Keep making eye contact with members of your audience.

Keep your head and chest up and sing or speak out.

All of these things will help project confidence, even if you feel very nervous!

Help! The Audience Is Gonna Eat Me!

If you are giving a clear and confident performance, chances are excellent the audience is not going to eat you. If they look less than entranced, consider that many people enjoy staring into the fire as they listen to the performer, and some close their eyes the better to listen. They may be enjoying you just fine.

However.

Two things do tend to annoy audiences. The first is an overly long piece. Storytellers must beware of this, but singers can stumble into it, too. For your first performance, keep it to five minutes or less. A SCAdian audience will be happy to give you their polite attention for that long. But as you go longer, the skill you will need to continue to command their attention increases. You will surely get to that level of skill eventually - but perhaps not at your very first bardic! If you decide to try a long piece anyway, and people seem to be fading away from you, wrap things up as quickly and neatly as you can.

A floundering performer who cannot recover and who will not cede the stage is the other annoying thing. SCAdians are very generous audiences. You can forget a word, or a verse, and they won't really mind. (Some of them may even try to help you remember.) But you have to keep going. You can pause briefly to try and remember - no more than the space of one or two breaths. After that, you must continue or else give up. (If you can remember everything but one troublesome word or phrase, there is no reason not to sing or say "la la la" or "something-something" and then keep going!)

There is no shame in giving up if you've blanked on the words. It happens, even to very experienced bards. To step aside for the next performer is the gracious thing to do. You may apologize for this, because you are assuming that the audience was enjoying your performance and now you must leave them hanging. You can ask to try again when it is next your turn, or ask if someone else knows the song or story and can finish it for you. If you are trying again, go somewhere you can collect yourself and recall the rest of the piece.

Repetoire Selection

In some ways, what you perform is much less important than how you perform it. Be clear, be confident, and the audience will like it. It is, however, often easier to "sell" a shorter, peppy or funny song or story to an audience. I don't personally feel this should be your guiding factor in repetoire selection; if you have your heart set on doing "Greensleeves," do "Greensleeves." But if you are unsure or waffling on what to do, upbeat pieces appeal to many.

Stage Fright

Lots and lots of practice will help with the stage fright. If you know, know that you can do this piece half-asleep and standing on your head, you can do it with some people watching you.

Practice for friends and small groups before your bardic debut, if you feel especially nervous about it.

Decide what kind of eye contact helps you. Some people can look one audience member in the eye and forget about the rest, which takes off some of the pressure. Some people get more nervous if they see that someone is watching them. The solution is not to close your eyes or stare at your feet, but to look at people's foreheads or the tops of their heads. It gives almost the same effect as looking them right in the eye.

Take some deep, calming breaths.

Remind yourself that the audience is eager to like you and your performance. They are a friendly bunch! Meet them as friends, and perform as a celebration. You do like doing this, right? That's the point!

The more you perform, the easier it gets. So perform often!

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