TED talk

Beating Stage Fright I chose this TED talk because the title was about stage fright, and I, just like most people, get pretty nervous before I give a speech. This speaker describes his struggle with stage fright while trying to be a singer. In order to get over his fear, he wrote a stage fright song and sang it to the audience before every performance. I happen to think that this is a great idea. While singing a song in front of my audience would be kind of weird, the idea of a “song” is a good idea. In the song, he addresses his symptoms of his fear. These include his voice being higher, his body shaking, and his voice cracking. All of these are common when presenting a speech when one is nervous. What this song has done for this man is incredible.

While giving his speech about his song, he had good body language. At first, he seemed nervous and appeared to be passing or rocking out of nerves. However, as he warmed up to the audience he began walking across the stage in a positive way. He also used his hands which gave the idea that he wasn’t nervous. The speaker used different tones of voice to cover his nervousness. He projects his voice so everyone listening can actually hear him (granted he does have a microphone). The speaker also speaks slowly and clearly. Sometimes, I know when I get nervous; I speak a million words a minute. However, even though he was nervous, he had to control his voice which made him look credible and not nervous. He made his struggle funny to the audience. The more the audience laughed, the more he seemed to relax. He did a great job playing off his audiences’ reactions and I think this is what made his speech so effective to me. The fact that he addressed his problem instead of hiding it made him and his audiences relax. This speaker’s technique might work for a lot of people. That doesn’t mean that a speaker has to sing a song in order to become less nervous. Instead, if the speaker simply addresses that he or she is a little nervous to his or her audience. Or maybe, just addressing the fact that you’re nervous to yourself will help. I am not sure if it will work, but I will definitely be trying it out on proposal day.