TAG: public speaking

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Public Speaking For Musician Entrepreneurs: Draw In Your Audience with an Enticing Theme

Entrypoint

People love music. It has been around since the early days of human’s existence on the planet and it is not going away. But classical music is under attack for being too elitist, too difficult, too alien to the experience of today’s audiences.  That’s why it is important to find ways to invite audiences into the world of classical music.  …

Public Speaking for Musicians: 3 Steps for Audience Engagement

This spring, I had the honor of appearing on the Chamber Music America First Tuesdays Series to speak about one of my favorite subjects: public speaking for musicians. Public speaking is a vital tool in making music relevant to today’s audiences since it is a way for musicians to share their passion and draw audiences into the wonders of classical music. …

Public Speaking for Musicians: Hook Your Audience by Telling Your Story

Astrid Opera America Closeup Final

Yesterday, I had the privilege of presenting a webinar at the Chamber Music America First Tuesdays series on Public Speaking for Musicians. I strongly advocate that musicians and arts leaders speak to audiences about music.  Indeed, an effective speech can open up new worlds for our audiences by giving them an insight from the perspective of a trained artist on how he or …

Public Speaking for Musicians: Speak From The Heart to Engage Your Audience

Are you glossophobic? In plain English, do you fear speaking in public? You are not alone! Speaking in front of others is a common fear. And yet, many of us are called up to do so, whether at work, in making presentations, in our personal lives making toasts at weddings or eulogies at funerals or leading discussion groups at local …

Top 10 Public Speaking Tips for Arts Leaders and Music Entrepreneurs

What is the first thing that comes up for you when you think about addressing a group of people, whether it is a wedding toast, a speech to a live audience at a music performance or a presentation at your local charity? If the answer is “fear” or “dread”, you are not alone! Fear of public speaking or glossophobia is …

The TED Commandments: 10 Rules for a Great Speech

What makes for a great speech?

These days, one need only log onto Ted.com to see examples of the leading lights in our culture speaking with passion on everything from art to business to science to you name it!   In fact, in my class, I assigned my students to watch Ben Zander’s TED Talk on Music and Passion to show them the excitement that music can generate to tap into new possibilities, new experiences and new connections.

TED talks are wildly popular.  According to TED’s own records, TEDTalks have been viewed more than 500 million times by people around the world (as of July 2011).

Is it merely an accident that these speeches are so good?  Or is there some method to guide these talented people?

It turns out that TED’s organizer’s indeed issue guidelines, called the TED Commandments, which are apparently engraved on a stone tablet and sent to their invited speakers!  I am indebted to Tim Longhurst for transcribing the engraved  commandments from a photograph and typing then up.  Here they are:

Public Speaking for Music Entrepreneurs: 4 Ways to Engage Your Audience

All semester, my students have been working on projects that have given them the opportunity to practice their newly honed entrepreneurial skills.  In our last class, they had a chance to share their projects and showcase their public speaking abilities that we learned about in our public speaking class. The goal was to deliver an interesting, engaging speech that conveyed …

Speaking About Music: How to Be Confident and Powerful

If you happened to wander by my classroom at Yale recently, you would have seen and heard my students and their professor (that would be me!) moving their arms, doing knee bends, rolling their lip, singing scales to the tune of “mi mi mi” and reciting tongue twisters under the tutelage of Professor Brian Lewis who came to my class to help us learn more about public speaking and overcome “glossophobia”(the fear of public speaking).

In fact, in some surveys, fear of public speaking is the number one common phobia, ranking even higher than the fear of death!  So Professor Lewis was there to give us some valuable tips on how to get comfortable with public speaking since he adn I both believe that this is an essential skill for today’s musicians.  Here is a summary of his remarks, together with my own observations on how to speak in public with power and confidence.