Shooting over our Shoulder

Sometimes I imagine myself as a gangster hero, running from the law and living the romantic life that any hero lives. One thing that gangsters are skilled at (the movies tell us) is shooting over the shoulder. Running down the street, and pausing just for a moment to crack off a shot with just a stylish twist of the body.

In real life, this is pretty much impossible. You would have more chance of hitting your opponent if you took off your shoe and threw it. The over the shoulder shot does not give you the base of stability you need for shooting, and the fact that you are likely to be puffing means the pistol barrel will be wobbling around like a new born lamb.

Yet so many people communicate with over the shoulder shots. Rushing from meeting to meeting, room to room, café to café, firing off remarks with no idea who’ll catch them, understand them, or take action on them.

If you want your words to strike home, breathe evenly and deeply. Take a firm stance, facing your audience. Ready, aim, fire.

Secrets of Communication from an Opera Recital

Last month, my wife and I went along to operatic recital from husband-and-wife singers John Murray and Anna Corrs. These two world-class performers live locally, but it was my first chance to actually see and hear them live. The recital, part of the season program from Tauranga Musica, was composed of favourites of the performers, a variety of operatic pieces by composers from different periods and languages.

A Deeply Engaging Performance

Watching these two experienced artists perform works which were familiar yet foreign was deeply engaging. I was astonished that complex emotions — tenderness, frustration, lust, and anger — could be so convincingly conveyed without a word of English. Murray and Corrs made use of gesture, vocal variety and voice projection to build drama, display emotion and free themselves of giving a boring, static performance.

Murray and Corrs both used gesture to maximise the impact of their emotive delivery and convey more context around the story each song told. Because they are professional singers and dramatists, I expected the big movements of stage performance. But those movements play a valuable role that I find easy to forget as a communicator; not everyone in the audience will sit close enough to see what I am doing with my hands. Big gestures mean that all the audience get the message. An interesting technique, I noticed the performers use was to actually move a little slower than normal, and to use the entire arm in the gesture, with open hands clearly visible all around the room. This slow, bold gesturing style gave the singers are very graceful appearance, almost like ballet dancers, without the leaping (or the tights).

Often in a recital, the performers remain predominantly in one location on the stage, captured by the podium and microphone or transfixed by the audience gaze. Murray and Corrs showed how effective it was to move around the

stage, singing without notes or amplification, and appearing totally comfortable dramatising the little stories in front of the audience. As they moved about the stage, interacting with each other, the singers really demonstrated the intention of each piece. As with their hand gestures, they kept the movement slow, bold and graceful. In one piece, they started with an angry stance back to back, and finished with a tender (audience appropriate) embrace. The stance and the positioning on the stage really drove the momentum and pacing of the story.

What Can We Learn?

As communicators presenting less ambitious themes and stories than those on the operatic stage, what can we learn from watching professional singers on stage? We can take away three lessons.

Use Generous Open Gestures

First, use generous open gestures and be willing to move around the stage. Use a powerful voice so that you are not tied down by the microphone. Your gestures and movements are then free to use up your entire stage giving the presentation enjoyable presence.

Move And Speak Slowly

Second, move and speak slowly. During a presentation it is harder to get your message across. You need to move at the pace the audience can understand you. That pace will be slower than you think, so move slowly.

Be Emotional

Thirdly, don’t be afraid to be emotional. You audience will never be more emotional than you. Every presentation that you give should pack a powerful emotional message. This helps you to get your point across and makes your story much more memorable.

I’ve learned three valuable lessons from singers John Murray and Anna Corrs – Use big gestures, move slowly, and be emotional. Now, I just need to learn to sing in Italian.