?>
Lost Password?
You are here: Home / Archives for Materials, Tools & Skills

 Transitions: How the Pros Do It

by Backstage: Materials, Tools & Skills Greenroom: 4 Comments

     Once your songs and your set list are in place, the last piece of the puzzle – the finishing touch, the frosting on the cake – is how you transition from song to song.  Many artists get to this point and just wing it, thinking it’s not that important.      Without this […]

Finding Your Niche

by Backstage: Materials, Tools & Skills Greenroom: 3 Comments

     While walking through the airport recently in Charlotte, NC, I was pleasantly surprised to hear someone playing a grand piano.  His name was Harper Hicks.  After he finished playing some Journey covers, I went over to drop 5 bucks in his tip jar and say hi.       Harper said he loves to […]

Using Cues: Don’t Wing It!

by Backstage: Materials, Tools & Skills, Vision & Planning Greenroom: 6 Comments

       I just returned from an AWESOME three week trip to Australia.         I experienced a stunning amount of music at the WOMAD Festival (pictured), in clubs, at my workshop and at the Fringe Festival.  There were artists of all types: from one guy with a guitar to a group of […]

The Mother of All Gigs…The 4-Hour Set

by Backstage: Materials, Tools & Skills Greenroom: 7 Comments

     Recently an article came through my Facebook feed that caught my attention.  The writer had his theory about why bands are setting themselves up for failure by playing 4-hour bar gigs.  I know there are a lot of you doing this and feel the frustration and pressure of holding an audience’s attention through […]

Under Pressure

by Backstage: Making it Your Own, Materials, Tools & Skills Greenroom: 3 Comments

Hey everybody,       Here’s a blog from an artist I’ve worked with in the past, Jessica Ridley. As I mentioned in my book, there are multiple ways to get prepared to walk on stage and she found her way like this… “This is for all my high strung singers out there. 🙂  I think I […]

Tackling the ‘What Ifs’

by Backstage: Materials, Tools & Skills Greenroom: 6 Comments

     No matter how well prepared you are for a gig, there are still going to be things that come up that you need to be prepared for…as best you can.      About a year ago, I remembered a gig I had done years ago, that I had totally forgotten about.  (I think […]

GETTING PERMISSION

by Backstage: Materials, Tools & Skills, Vision & Planning Greenroom: 5 Comments

     There’s nothing more frustrating for me than to watch an artist perform…halfway. ‘Kind of’ bringing it. Especially when I know what they are capable of as singers and musicians.      A few months ago I was in the audience at a large banquet where an established gospel singer was the entertainment. She […]

Ed Sheeran Did What?

by Backstage: Materials, Tools & Skills Greenroom: 15 Comments

In this week’s video blog, Amy Wolter discusses a recent performance by Ed Sheeran on Good Morning America. Ed performs with just an acoustic guitar and a loop pedal. However, there’s a lot more he could do to use the stage and connect with his audience.  What two things did Ed do wrong in the […]

Video Blog #1 – Welcome & Movement

by Backstage: Materials, Tools & Skills Greenroom: 8 Comments

     We work with a lot of different artists, from country to rock to pop to psycho billy punk horror 🙂 .      No matter the genre, the desire in your artistry is to be legitimate to the style you’re performing.  You want to present cohesiveness to the audience so they understand who […]

Help! My Band Doesn’t Get It!

by Backstage: Materials, Tools & Skills Greenroom: 3 Comments

It’s a tough thing when one member of a band is tuned in to the importance of actually ‘performing’ for an audience, but other members of the band aren’t. We invariably run into this a lot, typically because one member of a band, or the artists’ manager has seen what we can do to take […]