![]() Imagine you’re using some background music for a audience exercise, or to give atmosphere before you start (or even as walk-on music if you’re in the big leagues)… and the music you use is someone’s favourite song… or the song they played at their father’s funeral, or … you get the idea. ![]() That’s it’s strength in presentations but also a significant ‘gotcha’. You know that – you’ve got a favourite song, just like everyone else (though it’s probably different to everyone else’s). The whole point of music is that it hits you in your emotions. (It also looks slicker – so you at least look like you know what you’re doing! □ ) The less obvious presentation problem – psychology ![]() That way the sound carries better to the people at the back. That might be the right place to put it, but for lots of venues a better place is on a chair or a desk a few rows into the audience. Pro- tip – don’t automatically have the speaker right at the front, next to your computer. It covers any embarrassment your audience members might feel at first, it makes it look like you’re doing this deliberately and not as padding or in panic (trust me, I’ve seen presentations that do both of these!). A slide with background music is a god-send for moments like this. I’m not a huge fan of this kind of thing, because it smacks of lazy presenting, but there are times when it’s entirely appropriate to ask your audience to think or converse amongst themselves. I tend to include it in some pre-presentation play-lists, close to when the presentation is due to start. It’s a great piece of music for me for a lot of personal reasons and I’m lucky that it works technically, too, as it’s the right tempo for when I want to use it, and sufficiently obscure for it not to distract people (see below). Obviously your mileage will vary but hearing “ I am the Doctor” always puts my head in a good place, ready to present. I don’t use work on music, ‘cos I’m not that pretentious but I do have pieces of music I like to hear played.
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