Fake It till You Make It?

Stage Fright

That evening, I was about to sit on the little stool on the stage of the Cafe Why Not for the very first time. I asked Jerry, the manager, for tips on being successful. Now, Jerry was not a performer, but he offered me the advice that I did subsequently hear from others in the Folk Music trade of the 1960’s – Fake it till you make it. That evening, the audience was kind and forgave my beginner’s nerves. Subsequently, I went on lots of stages, behind podiums and lecterns, and in classrooms and lecture halls. And really, the best advice I can offer is this: Know your stuff ( really know it), and be prepared for detours.

Know Your Stuff

Detours can be requests for songs or added information. And that’s why a public presentation is different than answering a question in class or writing an essay on it. You stand there and watch the reaction of the audience – smiles, question marks, and yes- scowls. You need to know more than your set, presentation, or performance. It has been compressed. After all, you are not doing a dissertation. But you need to be practiced enough to trot out a detour, and then, importantly, get back to your main points. It’s not a bad idea to think about possible detours in advance and be prepared. Getting lost on a detour is the best reason I can think of for really knowing your stuff. It helps keep you on course.

So I guess you have the impression that I don’t particularly like the fake it until you make it school? Well, it has its uses when you are thrown into the deep end of the pool with an audience, but as a general rule, knowing your subject and how to present it is the best rule.

Fake It Till You Make It – II

The fake it till you make it school has a great advantage in that you are encouraged to get up and do your stuff repeatedly until you master it. Repetition with schooled practice hones your presentation and gets it nice and crisp. You are not going to become a performer just by sitting in front of a mirror. For example – patter. Patter is stuff you use to break the ice, use between or to introduce songs, and as fill material while you tune the guitar. Practicing in front of the mirror won’t teach you how to pace this in front of a live audience. It won’t teach you the best emphasis on tag lines or the sort of body language to use. It also won’t teach you which songs you love, but that various audiences don’t engage with. This is where fake it till you make it comes in handy…or in other words, “throwing it against the ceiling and seeing what sticks…”

Jerks

Let’s call this an extra credit part of the curriculum!

I had sarcastic little bits when I had someone who couldn’t shut up in the audience. You can ignore this shit only so long till it obstructs your set, or the concentration of the audience on you. One ran like this, ” Hey, you, yeah, you with the nostril beard…” I moved rapidly for the kill, making that person an object of derision for the audience. It was us against the bore. Most shut up, some left, and almost all grew quiet. The drunks got asked to leave by a persuasive manager. Was this puerile? Sure, and I’d never do it now. But at two in the morning on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, the crowd would snicker and wonder what I was going to do next? Sing a song improvised on the spot about nostril beards?

You are almost certainly not going to be in a position to handle that type of idiocy. But you should have a manner to handle interruptions because they can distract the audience, and throw you off your pace, thereby disturbing your self-confidence.

Admittedly, my experiences as a coffeehouse Folkie had a big influence on me. But I learned lessons that stood me in good stead elsewhere.