Role of the performer (Eminem)

 

Eminem's Lose Yourself, Oct 28th 2002, 54 Sound Studio, Detroit Michigan

    This is Eminem's piece "Lose Yourself" as to which he describes exactly why he is an amazing performer, describing the struggles of mental and physical stress with performing in his lyrics for example "His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy, there's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti, he's nervous but on the surface, he looks calm and ready." as well as tools he uses to stay confident for instance his life struggles and how badly he wants them to end is what he mentally focus's on to get in the zone. This keeps him calm during his performance to combat stage anxiety to give his absolute best. This is the key factor of performing, he says "You better lose yourself, in the music, the moment, you own it you better never let it go." What I believe he means is you have to lose your the panicked voice in your head that thinks what the crowd is thinking and focus on yourself and the music and lose yourself in the performance.

     Center Stage Music Center can back this information, as they claim their most important key to performing is to "Be in the moment: Nerves can easily destroy a good performance, which is why it's important to silence the worrisome voice that constantly says "what if I'm doing something wrong?!"" Essentially saying to lose yourself in the moment, well said Eminem. Accompanied by a description of the practice taken due to hardships in his life to learn these tools, he says this about the topic "I've been chewed up and spit out and booed off stage but I kept rhymin' and stepped right in the next cypher". This shows his overall dedication to the music industry and how much painful trial and error he was willing to take to be an absolutely amazing performer, showing it did not come easy and practice definitely makes perfect. 

Eminem's Venom Empire State Performance, Oct 15. 2018, New York City

      You can really see this practice has really grown, this amazing performance is absolutely stunning with an elaborate set up to stun the audience and complete and utter confidence to back it up. He is calm and absolutely kills the performance, even with the chance of certain areas being edited and such the wind is blowing in his face and he is still able to not only mentally perform but physically as well, he is able to move his body in certain ways that entertains the audience all while focusing on the musical aspects of the performance. His role as a performer is to be an artist, and make his stage presence the canvas, he shows his pain and struggles through his voice and dramatic body language as well as an overwhelming sense of confidence which is super important in a performance, it speaks that you know what you're doing and a certain sense of influential behavior the audience can receive. 

  

  Just watching the excitement grows as his body movements become more dramatic and he really puts emphasis with his mouth and hands on what he is saying. You can see people recording from the ground below while a helicopter loudly records from above, there are so many distractions other than the audience this time, and he has absolutely shown his skills to be well worth it, it takes a seriously skilled performer to pull off something this fantastic. For example, someone who maybe has mastered the sound they would like to convey as well as the lyrics but stands still may not be able to be as influential or reach the audience as someone who is able to focus on their body language while doing so.

The elements used to make the performance more of an immersive experience, such as the beat you can feel in your chest or the meter that is satisfying for your brain to listen to can really open your experience and make it feel like you're connected to the music. In live performances you will notice how the music is physically noticeable in many ways, even the use of loud speakers changing the timbre and giving a different atmosphere. You could possibly not receive listening to the same song in the car with speakers unable to replicate the same experience. In what Eminem is trying to convey this is absolutely fantastic, the hard hit of these emotional lyrics combined with you physically feeling it really makes you get just a taste of his drive and power as a performer and person derived from struggle.      

Bibliography: 

Musician job profile | prospects.ac.uk. (n.d.). https://www.prospects.ac.uk/job-profiles/musician

Kamau, J., & Stage, C. (2017, June 6). What makes a performance great?. Center Stage Music Center. https://centerstagemusiccenter.com/makes-performance-great/#:~:text=Be%20in%20the%20moment%3A%20Nerves,a%20full%20bow%20or%20two%2C