One aspect to devote some attention to is stage presence. This is overlooked by many guitarists as they feel it isn’t important. Although the idea may seem daunting, developing a sense of stage presence can be a lot of fun.
Start out by picking a song you’re comfortable playing. Just like when you learned to play the chords, you should now copy the stage movements of the guitarist based on a live performance of the song. This is easier if you can obtain a recording with a fixed camera position. There are a lot of audience recordings on YouTube which makes this process easier. If you can only obtain segments of the performance, this will be more than good enough. You should start out by recreating the movements of a particular performance exactly as you see it.
By devoting time to this kind of practise, you will learn to consciously be aware of your stage presence. This will be the building blocks to develop your own sense of stage presence. Eventually, you don’t want to be cloning the movements of another player. You want to have your own style, preferably playing your own music.
You may notice a few challenges at first. For example, it will be necessary to mute your guitar if you’re doing movements with your arms such as hand-clapping. If your guitar isn’t muted, your strings will ring uncontrollably producing unwanted noise.
One thing most professional performances have in common is the fact that the band will seem like they’re having a good time on stage. This type of thing normally doesn’t normally come naturally at first, but it’s very quick to develop.
