Open Mics – Music v Comedy, not a four letter word!

Compared to a “show”, the open mic is for us. It’s mostly other artists in the room. It’s a chance for us to share our work, to workshop it, developing both the art and the artist.

I grew up a musician, trained professionally in theater, but I live in the comedy world. I find the later to be the smartest as a business choice, better ROI (return on investment), less over head, brutally honest when content is not working. This blog is about how I see Open Mics, how an artist should use them.

I always hated open mics. There have been more painful moments, on stage and off, than great. This past Monday, however, running sound for a music night, with some poetry, and even a little gospel, I remembered how much an open mic can be a celebration of out art.

I remembered my first open mic, when a blurs band invited me to jam on the piano. On stage I just rocked out. They called a key, I threw down some chords and a few links, and even a solo or two. I had blast, but at times it felt like a battle of the bands – A competition. The locals that have been doing mics for decades walked around with ego. A few hid in the shadows and never went up, thinking those shmucks were the real artists. You know the type. Underneath the LOOK AT ME is a bitter soul sad to have been left behind when their friends got signed. EGO is just as bad as the insecurity it hides, if not worse. We need to move past te ego, and feel the hurt to process and move past it to find our true art.

As a comic I have mostly had good experiences, but I also mostly produced my own. After going to one or two I realized, I could do that. I could run a mic. And I could do it without the power trip of wannabe hack.

So I started RAW, Tuesday nights at the Improv, 2005 or 2006. Comics paid a small fee to perform, had a beer, maybe. I barked in a small crowd. So in addition to 20 comics, we had 8-10 real audience, free to them. No promises. Buy some drinks and watch our process. Someone was paying attention. It felt like a real show and we got some honest feedback, which for us is either laughs, groans or silence. We don’t consider hecklers honest feedback. You just need to go. 😆

What I Teach

From my book, the Stand Up Comedy Workbook, and my comedy classes, I teach every open mic, as well as every performance, should have three steps. You are only on stage for 5-10 minutes, or less, perhaps the length of your song. How do we maximize the experience to best benefit our development as an artist.

• PREPARE – Organize your thoughts, write, learn, develop the material on your own. In other words, DO YOUR HOMEWORK!
• GET ON STAGE – Just get up there and make the most of this moment. Simply share your words, your song, your heart and talent with the world.
• ANALYZE THE WORK – Don’t celebrate. Don’t commiserate. Without ego or insecurity, objectively dissect the good, the bad and the ugly immediately after the time on stage.

Digging a Little Deeper, WHY / HOW Open Mics

The best, most successful artists treat an open mic as a tool in their personal development and their original work. How do we do this?

• HAVE FUN. Remove ego and insecurity from the equation. Both keep us from sharing our best selves an our best work.
• This is not a competition. In the room will be a wide variety of talent, at different stages of development, and at different stages with their current work. Don’t compare your time with any other.
• Don’t judge. It’s a way to hide our own ego and insecurity. You are cutting off your own create powers wasting that mental space and energy. Also, we are all here for different reasons. Sometimes at the mic, the worst performance is actually by far the best artists working through something new. It’s painful now so it will be beautiful later.
• Do watch and learn from others, their successes and missteps. That will save us a lot of awkward times on stage.
• Give yourself the space to mess up. Who cares. THIS is where we fall flat on our face, so we are perfect for when the folks want to pay us for our art. Get the bad jokes/notes/words out of the way. Learn to love telling a bad joke, having fun, even when you say/sing the wrong word or note. Bravery is not living without fear. Confidence is being okay with mistakes.
• Don’t TRY to be funny, clever, perfect or great. TRUST that you will be, or won’t, no big whoop.
• When working on new material you WANT to mess up; you NEED to find the flaws in your work and your process. This is how we grow and find the perfect routine.
• LISTEN!!!! Listen with a creators heart, with eyes of a ninja. Ego and insecurity destroy this connection with ourselves ad oir audience. Dig deep. Lose yourself in the work, but 10% of our consciousness stays alert. Making mental notes. I say this about every performance. Just enough of us stays present to keep us from hurting ourselves or others physically. Get too lost and we start running into lighting etc (I speak from experience).
• RECORD EVERYTHING! This allows us to lose ourselves in the work. Watch ot, objectively taking notes on the material, oir performance. 
• Don’t stop! Don’t make the face! The confident folks don’t have less fear, we just don’t let that ruin our focus. The only exception, at this stage or any stage, when it’s going REALLY bad, own it. Have fun messing up. Sometimes we have to stop the entire orchestra and start again. But not for our ego or insecurity, because the work deserves a redo. But don’t let the voices in. Don’t give up on yourself or the work for the go and insecurity.

STAGE FREIGHT, WHAT DO WE DO?

The other day, a young woman got on stage. She was terrified. In tears, she fought through it, for a bit, then stopped. She could not get through the song. It was not an easy song. A fast triplet with a lot of words over an R&B power ballad chill. Not sure I could pull it off.

But you what, until she gave up on herself, overwhelmed with the SF, she was freaking amazing! And so often it’s true, the ones that care the most, put the most pressure on themselves. But when it’s time to shine they can’t let go.

But here’s the thing. STAGE is the number one fear in this world. It’s natural. ItsOK. And some of the best ARTISTS, in the truest sense of that word, are terrified. Some never get passed it.

The trick?

There is no trick. It takes time and experience. You have to get up there and work through the pain. Some of my best performances, I was terrified. Shaking, nearly collapsing offstage. But on stage I put all that anxiety into the work. It fueled the music, he character, etc. It made me real, and at te same time bigger than life.

HAVE FUN!

Once on stage, stop thinking. STOP WORKING. It’s fun time. It’s time to share. It’s time to let loose. We have to be OK with being garbage. If you mess up, who cares. Go back to the list above.

AND REMEMBER, the best artists are the ones that care. When you work through all, you will come out on top. You might not get the praise today, but of using a mic properly that not why your here, anyway. The praise comes when folks throw money at you for you’re art. You get the followers and the likes. BUT still don’t let ego ruin your art.

• Stand-Up Comedy Workbook by Walt Frasier via Amazon – Paperback, Kindle, FREE via Kindle Unlimited Other books via Amazon
• Bronx Open Mic Mondays 6pm
• Virtual Open Mic Tuesdays 8pm
• IMPROV 101 4-8 week sessions, Times Square NYC (16+ Welcome)
• COMEDY 4 TEENS 8 Week Sessions, Times Square NYC (12-17)
• COMEDY 4 KIDS 8 Week Sessions, Times Square NYC (8-12)
• COMEDY CAMP 8-10 weeks every summer, Times Square NYC (8-17 yos)
• EMAIL for more information, drop in for a trial class, book a group or private workshop.

Walt Frasier has 25+ years of professional credits in comedy, Theater and music. He got his big break in TV performing comedy sketches on MTV’s Stankervision, Late Nite with David Letterman, TruTV’s Friends of the People, and most recently on HBO’s Pause with Sam Jay. As an actor, Frasier has appeared on NBC’s Blacklist, CBS’s Blue Bloods, USA’s Royal Pains (Filmed in Puerto Rico), Netflix’s Lilyhammer (filmed in Norway) and NICK’s Naked Brothers Band. In addition to 1000s of live performances around the world, Frasier has also appeared in numerous commercials, industrials, webisodes and reality TV shows.