Matthew Moran

I am a songwriter.  I am a performer.  I am a technology professional.

However, Ill be the first to admit that I am a poster child for the proverbial cobblers children and their shoes ' or lack thereof.

What I mean is that while I had dabbled with and around a variety of technologies ' primarily for online promotion & exposure for music, I let other priorities take me away from any concentrated effort in this area.

Over the past couple of months, I have been making an effort and strides in remedying that.  If you are a songwriter/performer, maybe you are in a similar boat. Using technology is not just about editing and publishing songs or videos ' although those are important technologies.  Im going to introduce you to technologies and tools I use or want to use.

Improving Your Live Performances:
First, the most important thing you can do as a performer is' perform' well!!!  There is no real substitute for getting out and playing.  You need to visit open mics and showcases ' and fear/intimidation not-withstanding, you need to get behind the mic.

AZOpenMic.com has Arizona specific open mics several listed.  Openmikes.org has a state by state calendar of open mics.  This is nice if you are out of town and want to find a place to play.  When I visited Portland, I found the Portland Songwriters Association and played 2 nights out of 3 that I was there ' and via Facebook, reconnected with a friend from high-school.

In 2007 I stepped it up ' both in songwriting quantity and in working on my stage presence and performance.  In many ways, this is similar to being a public speaker.  You never see gradual improvement unless you have a record ' video of your performances.

In 2008 I started to videotape some of my performances and also started watching videos of live performances on YouTube.  I wanted to see what I liked and what I didnt.  More importantly, I asked for and accepted feedback from friends and peers.

I can tell you, I am a much better performer today than I was in 2008.  I was better in 2008 than I was in 2007.  In fact, one friend saw me play a venue and 7 weeks later I played the same venue.  They said the enjoyed my first performance but in between playing the second performance they saw, I played 12 open mics and 3 forty-five to two hour sets.  They said the second performance was night and day ' greatly improved.

Summary: use open mic and songwriter organizations to get involved and find places to play ' especially where you get to see and meet other performers.   Use Youtube and other video services to watch other performers and video your self to see how you perform (presence).

Get out and perform, perform, perform!

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