The music started, and I was already losing.
It was a corporate event in Vienna, a technology conference where I had been booked to deliver a keynote with magic woven into the presentation. The AV team had asked me in advance what music I wanted for my entrance. I had not thought about it. I told them to just use whatever they had been using for the other speakers. Something generic. Something professional.
What they played was a smooth, corporate background track — the kind of music you hear in lobby elevators and on-hold phone systems. Polished. Inoffensive. Completely devoid of personality.
I walked out to this music, smiled at the audience, and immediately felt the gap between what the music was communicating and what I was about to deliver. The music said: this is another corporate presentation. It said: settle in, this will be professional and polished and forgettable. It said: lower your expectations to the level of a mid-afternoon conference session.
I then had to spend the first three minutes of my set overcoming the expectations that the music had established. I had to prove to the audience that I was not what the music said I was. That this was going to be different from what they had been sitting through all day. That they should pay attention.
I won them over eventually. The material was strong enough and the magic surprising enough that the audience re-engaged. But those first three minutes were harder than they needed to be, and the reason was entirely my fault. I had treated walk-on music as an afterthought, and the music had responded by undermining me before I opened my mouth.
The First Sound Is the First Impression
Dan Harlan talks about music in magic performance as one of the animate elements of theatre — a living component that moves and changes and creates emotional texture. He talks about entering and exiting with music, about pre-show music setting the audience’s mood, about stingers that establish tone in a few seconds. What all of these ideas share is a recognition that sound is not background. Sound is environment. And the first sound the audience hears in connection with your performance is, in a very real sense, the opening line of your show.
Think about how this works everywhere else. A film does not begin with the first line of dialogue — it begins with the score. A concert does not begin with the first chord — it begins with the walk-on music and lighting change. A boxing match begins with the fighter’s entrance music, the slow walk to the ring. In each case, the walk-on music tells the audience who this person is and what kind of experience they are about to have. And expectations, once set, are remarkably difficult to change.
Scott Alexander emphasizes the importance of the opener — hit them right between the eyes up front, he writes. He recommends multiple opener options so you are never locked into a single approach. But the real opening is not the first trick. The real opening is the moment the audience first becomes aware that the next performer is coming. That moment is the walk-on music.
What Your Walk-On Music Communicates
Every piece of music carries information. Not just emotional information, though that is the most obvious layer. Walk-on music communicates at multiple levels simultaneously.
It communicates energy level. Fast, driving music says: this performer has high energy. Slow, atmospheric music says: this performer is going to take their time. The audience calibrates their own energy accordingly.
It communicates confidence. A performer who walks on to carefully chosen, perfectly timed music projects preparation and professionalism. A performer who walks on to generic background music — or worse, to silence — projects indifference about their own show.
It communicates character. Your walk-on music is a character statement. It tells the audience whether you are serious or playful, edgy or warm, mysterious or approachable. If your walk-on music and your performing persona are misaligned — if you walk on to something dark and brooding and then deliver a comedy act — the audience feels the disconnect even if they cannot name it.
How I Chose My Walk-On Music
After the Vienna experience, I made walk-on music a priority. I approached it the way my consulting brain approaches any strategic problem: by defining the objective first and working backward to the solution.
The objective was clear. My walk-on music needed to communicate several things simultaneously: that this keynote would be different from the other presentations; that I was a professional who had thought about every element of the experience; that the audience was about to see something entertaining; and that my personality was warm and confident without being arrogant.
I spent three weeks testing different tracks. Not three weeks of continuous effort — three weeks of practice sessions where I would play potential walk-on music, walk across the hotel room to the desk where my props were set up, and pay attention to how the music made me feel as I moved. This sounds absurd, and it looked absurd, but it worked. The physical experience of walking to the music, of inhabiting the transition from backstage to performance mode while listening to a specific track, told me more about the fit than any amount of analytical evaluation.
Some tracks that sounded perfect on their own felt wrong when I walked to them. Others that I had dismissed as too unusual revealed themselves as perfect when paired with the physical act of walking on stage.
The track I eventually chose surprised me. It was not from a genre I associated with keynote speaking. But when I walked to it, something clicked. My posture changed. My face changed. I felt like the version of myself I wanted to be on stage — confident, warm, slightly playful, fully present. The music did not just accompany my entrance. It shaped who I was when I arrived in front of the audience.
Timing and the Walk-On Window
One of the practical details that nobody tells you about walk-on music is the critical importance of timing. There is a window — usually between fifteen and forty-five seconds — during which the walk-on music does its work. Before that window, the music is just pre-show atmosphere. After that window, the music becomes an imposition, an overstayed welcome, a signal that something has gone wrong with the transition.
Within that window, every second counts. The music needs to establish itself quickly — the audience should understand its energy and mood within the first few beats. Then it needs to build appropriately to the moment you arrive at your performing position. And it needs to end cleanly — either fading out as you begin to speak, or cutting precisely on a cue, or continuing under your opening words before fading.
I learned this through trial and error at several events. At one conference in Innsbruck, the AV technician started the music too early, while the emcee was still reading my introduction. The music played for over a minute before I appeared. By the time I walked out, the track had already peaked and was cycling back through its verse. The energy that should have accompanied my entrance had already spent itself on an empty stage.
At another event, the music started too late. I was already walking out when the first notes played, which meant the audience heard silence during the initial seconds of my entrance — silence that read as a technical error, not a dramatic choice. The music then played for only a few seconds before I reached my position and began speaking, which was not enough time for it to establish any mood at all.
Getting the timing right requires communication with the sound operator. Harlan’s notes on sound emphasize the importance of sound checks and of understanding that what you hear on stage is not what the audience hears. This applies doubly to walk-on music, because you are not on stage when it starts playing. You are backstage or offstage, listening to a different version of the sound. The only way to get the timing right is to rehearse the walk-on with the actual sound system, in the actual venue, with the actual operator, and to agree on precise cues for when the music starts and when it fades.
I now include walk-on music timing as a specific item in my technical rider for every event. The track, the starting cue, the target volume, the fade-out point — all of it specified in writing. Some event organizers find this level of detail excessive for a keynote speaker. I find it necessary, because those first thirty seconds of sound shape everything that comes after.
The Pre-Show Music Connection
Walk-on music does not exist in isolation. It exists in the context of everything the audience has been hearing before you appear. Harlan talks about pre-show music setting the audience’s mood, but for most corporate events and conferences, you do not control the pre-show music. You inherit whatever the event organizer has chosen. Your walk-on music needs to work as a contrast to whatever came before — a sonic signal that something is changing, that the previous mode of the event is ending and a new mode is beginning.
This is why generic corporate music fails so badly as walk-on music. If the pre-show music was generic and your walk-on is also generic, there is no contrast. The audience has no sonic signal that something different is starting. The best walk-on music creates a noticeable shift — a change in tempo, instrumentation, or energy level. The audience’s ears register that the soundscape has changed, which prompts their attention to shift from background mode to foreground mode.
One Track, Many Venues
I now use the same walk-on music for most of my keynote appearances. This might sound limiting, but it serves an important purpose: consistency of character.
Every time I hear that track, I become the performer. It is a Pavlovian response that I have deliberately cultivated. The music is my transition ritual. It takes me from the backstage headspace — the nervous energy, the checklist anxiety, the awareness of everything that could go wrong — and moves me into the performance headspace. By the time I reach my position and the music fades, I am not thinking about logistics or technical details. I am present, energized, and focused on the audience.
The audience, of course, does not know this. They hear the music once, in this context, and they process it as a character introduction. But for me, the walk-on music is also a psychological tool. It anchors my performing state. It is the last thing I hear before I speak, and over dozens of performances, it has become inseparable from the feeling of being ready.
Your walk-on music is more than decoration. It is the first argument your show makes. Choose it as carefully as you choose your opening line, because the audience will judge both before you know they are listening.