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Five bits of advice for both newbie and novice presenters alike. We’re not just talking about writing proposals or putting together a presentation but the physical act of presenting.
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Items Mentioned and Other Related Content
Presenting Tips with Amy Chaplin (Nicola Cantan | Colourful Keys Podcast)
The Wow Factor: Crafting Winning Proposals and Engaging Presentations (in Patreon)
Tips for Presenting: Tools, Resources, and a Pep Talk (Piano Pantry blog)
Transcript
We’re entering a season when many state music teacher associations hold conferences. It seems like most associations in the independent teacher community either hold a summer or a fall conference, as the big Music Teachers National Conference is in early spring, and – as you know – April and May are really bad times for any kind of conference.
In today’s episode, I have some tips for presenters. Whether you are just interested in presenting, are presenting for the first time, or have a little or lot of experience, I think you’ll find this content valuable and incredibly practical.
This topic has been on my mind a lot ever since I gave a session at the MTNA Conference in Atlanta called “The Wow Factor: Crafting Winning Proposals and Engaging Presentations.”
Following that session, I talked even more about this topic with Andrea Miller on the Music Studio Startup Podcast and Nicola Cantan on the Vibrant Music Teaching Podcast. You can find links to those episodes, as well as a transcript for today, in the show notes at PianoPantry.com/podcast/episode138
Presenting continues to be on my mind as this fall, I’ll be presenting sessions at the Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois Conferences and also just wrapped up a three-session workshop with the Southwest Ohio Music Teachers Association in Cincinnati last weekend. By the way, if your group is just getting going with its planning, drop me a message—I have some open slots for spring and would love to share a session with your group.
So, the topic continues because, you know what – I don’t hear anyone giving advice in this area, so I will give it to you from as many angles as possible because I have quite a lot to say. LOL.
In my “Wow Factor” session as well as in my conversations with Nicola and Andrea, we focused a lot on the process of proposal writing and presenting preparation – as in putting your session together. In today’s episode, I want to focus on the physical act of presenting.
While I’ve already blogged and spoken extensively on this topic, today’s episode offers completely new insights and advice that I’ve never shared before.
By the way, if you would like to access the session, I gave at MTNA, “The Wow Factor: Crafting Winning Proposals and Engaging Presentations,” you can do so on Patreon. Not only will you get access to that and a lot more content, but you’ll also be supporting the work of this ad-free podcast.
It’s been several episodes since I gave a shout-out to my Patreon supporters, so today, I want to give a personal thanks to Craig Harmanny from Harmanny Music Education for his support of this work. It’s been great connecting with you in our weekly meetings.
Join by looking for Piano Pantry on Patreon or visit PianoPantry.com/patreon directly.
This first item is the only one that has overlaps with my previous conversations on this topic because it’s such an important one, and that is to…
Know your material > practice, and have respect for the time allotted.
Take time to practice presenting your session, whether it’s hiding in your closet, making your family sit and watch you, or volunteering to do it for a collegiate pedagogy program.
The first time I presented, I was so nervous that I did like eight full run-throughs.
If you have to – write the entire thing out in long form. It’s a lot of work but I do and I know others that do as well and I find it so helpful to get all of my thoughts out. I know plenty of people that just make an outline and that is totally OK as well as long as you can pace yourself properly.
Practicing gives you a chance to really think things through and time yourself to ensure the content you’ve planned will fit smoothly into the time you’ve been awarded.
Here’s where I have to have a little rant.
If you submitted and were hoping for a full session but were awarded a 20-minute session, please don’t try and fit 60 minutes of material into 20 minutes nor complain to us at the start how rushed you will be for time. Just get to it and make peace with the time awarded.
I love 20-minute sessions because they really force you to think intentionally about how to be concise with your content. Don’t make a 20-minute session feel like a full session that was cut short; craft it accordingly.
Second – Be overly prepared – with your setup, that is.
If you are presenting for something other than a national conference like NCKP or MTNA – it’s not a bad idea to carry an HDMI cable with you.
Just a couple of weekends ago when I was presenting in Cincinnati, the library location said they had a projector and HDMI cable but when I got there the cable was like 3 feet long and I would have been forced to stand on the stage behind the podium.
I wanted to stand on the floor closer to the teachers I was talking to, so I pulled out the 10’ cable I had brought along just in case, and I was sure glad I did.
It’s also a good idea to have your slides available in more than one location. For example, I create all my slides now in Canva, but I export them to a local PowerPoint file before I leave home just in case I don’t have good internet access to play them from Canva. I also export to PDF just to be safe, but I have never needed to use that.
If able, have two devices that you might be able to use to play from. Another example from a couple weekends ago was I was playing my Canva slides and was going to use my notes in presenter mode on Canva – so if you use presenter mode it will give you an audience screen and then a separate screen which has your notes on it so you can see the slide plus your notes – but couldn’t figure out how to project just the audience screen slide while viewing my presenter slide from my laptop. It was just wanting to display the presenter slide on the screen.
I ended up playing the slides from the laptop and using my iPad for my session notes which I also had logged into Canva.
While I used the notes section on slides in that particular example, I think my preference is still typing my notes into a Word document in at least 14-point font so they’re easy to see and also 1.5-2.0 line spread. I then highlight the text as my prompt for when to change to the next slide.
So I’ve done it both ways but I do think it’s still my preference to have a word document with all my notes.
I also like to set the bottom page margin to like 2 or 3 inches to keep all of my notes at the upper part of the page so I don’t have to look down so far to see my notes at the bottom of the page. A little crazy, but it actually does help quite a bit.
Third – Posture yourself in a way that is true to you.
You are the presenter, and you bring your own unique personhood and personality to the table when giving your presentation.
Just because you enjoy presenters who are able to walk around the room and engage the audience and who speak without notes in front of them, doesn’t mean you, at your best, have to look the same.
Posture yourself in a way that feels good and natural to you. If you don’t like standing behind a podium because you’re short (like me), use a music stand if available. I actually try to take one with me any time I speak—just in case one isn’t available—to make sure I can place myself in a comfortable location in the room and adjust the height of my notes so that I can refer to them without having them right in front of my face.
Fourth – Don’t be afraid of silence.
My brother works for a Japanese company, and he has shared a cultural difference that took him a while to get used to. He said in his business dealings, whether in daily meetings or business meals, silence is a welcome part of communication.
A conversation might be going along, and suddenly, everyone is silent for more than what feels to us like a normal passing second. He said his natural tendency—as it might be for many of us—was to feel like he had to jump in to fill that silence. I will add that he’s not even a talkative person—he’s actually quite quiet.
His Japanese colleagues, though, were completely comfortable with these stretches of silence, and he had to go against his natural instinct and learn to find comfort in that breath.
In music, silence through rests is just as important as the notes themselves, and in teaching, we give our students moments of silence to let their minds process before jumping back in with an answer of their own.
A good presenter will find comfort in intentional beats of silence. It doesn’t have to be long—sometimes, just 2-3 seconds is all it takes. While those 2-3 seconds might feel like an entire minute to you as the presenter, the audience needs that space to process what you’re saying.
I’ve been to sessions where the presenter talks so fast and never pauses that I leave the session feeling anxious and overwhelmed.
As the presenter, if you feel like you have to talk a mile a minute to fit the content you’ve prepared into your allotted time, then that’s your clue that you have too much content.
Fifth – Try to maintain self-awareness in the moment.
I’ll admit, this can be hard to do in the moment when you’re in the spotlight with all eyes on you. I’m exaggerating here, but sometimes, presenting to me can feel like an out-of-body experience where you hit the play button, and you can’t hit pause or stop. It just has to keep going.
As much as you can, though, try to be self-aware of things like talking rate and thus your pacing, excessive hand gestures, eye contact with the audience, and filler words.
This last item is one area I’ve been incredibly aware of recently in myself. In fact, I had a whole pity party session with my mastermind friends when I heard myself using excessive filler words in a guest podcast appearance.
By filler words, I’m talking about more than just “Um’s.” We’re talking “So…” Like…” “But…” “You know…” They all creep in so much more than we realize! Editing conversations with my own podcast guests made me extra aware of how much we all say these words. You would be shocked at how many of those words I edit out of every conversation episode.
I have known someone personally in life—no one who would be listening to this podcast—who starts almost every sentence with the word “So…” It drives me insane. So have self-awareness.
If you feel like you’re talking too fast, you probably are. Take a breath pause—like we just talked about, silence is actually good—and give yourself a beat to gather your thoughts and slow down your speaking rate.
When you turn to your next slide just pause for a second and look at it, that can be an easy cue for yourself to give those beats of silence.
It can be very easy to turn a session into one where it feels like you, as the presenter, are talking AT your audience and not TO your audience. I think this can easily happen when one gets talking too quickly and does not take intentional moments of silence.
Last but not least. Don’t forget to smile!
No, you don’t have to posture yourself in a fake way if you’re not a smiley person, but a little smile here and there goes a long.
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This is one more reminder that the workshop Organize Your Life with Notion put on by myself and Joy Morin will be happening THIS Friday and Saturday, September 20-21. Registration is still open, and a $20 off coupon is available. Visit PianoPantry.com/notion for more details and to register.
Thanks for being here week after week, everyone. I hope you find this content inspiring and encouraging as you go throughout your work days, weeks, and life.
Bye for now!
