Open mic experiences

[ASR]

I should seriously stop spouting stuff because I know absolutely nothing and only started in January, but ha, whatever.

CaptainBreakfast, I still add and swap some jokes every time, that's a huge thing for me. I just mean I still use a lot of things over and over again rather than doing different stuff every time.

As for writing, I'll generally have ideas come to me at very random times, and I'll either jot them down on a piece of scrap paper or save it in a note on my phone. Then, later, I expand on the idea in my joke notebook, talk it out loud and decide how I'll do it.

I have a thing in my notebook I call The Pot where I put every possible vague joke idea down on designated pages, and then Cooking Jokes where I expand on the better and more promising Pot ideas. I started this recently and it's been working. The stuff I bring on stage is all cooked and ready to serve. Whoohoo, metaphors.

[Gene George]

Do you guys sit down and get yourselves to do some writing, or do jokes and material just come to you at various times during the day/week?

Both. I keep a notepad/recorder/phone with voice memo handy and I also try to set aside time to write or flesh out bits or write a sketch or blog. AM works best for me. That all being said, I am bad about writing ideas down and also blow off time I set aside so there.

Also worrying about the "telling the same jokes" thing is the equivalent of finding out magicians don't actually make doves appear out of thin air. There's a balance between grinding the same act day after day and riffing on a set series of topics and full on improvisation.

[pg13]

You know what I've been noticing lately is that many popular Comedians are doing the same material/jokes over and over and over and over.

I said this in a previous post, but it bears repeating... At this stage of the game, you don't even know how much you have to learn yet.

However...if it has just come to you that comedians don't make up a whole new act every time they perform...perhaps maybe a little bit of book reading would get you up to speed.

I mentioned the Jay Sankey "Zen and the Art of Stand-Up Comedy" book previously...still, a great read...but you may also get some value from reading Judy Carter's books ("Stand-Up Comedy-The Book" or "The Comedy Bible") or Dave Schwensen's books ("How To Be A Working Stand-Up Comedian" or "Comedy FAQ's")...as they will answer many of these basic questions.

One other book that I would recommend as strongly as Sankey's book is Franklyn Ajaye's "Comic Insights" book--it's half "how to" and half "how did they"...and 100% awesome!

Beyond that...don't watch clips of professional comedians and freak out about what you're doing compared to what they're doing--you'd be comparing apples to oranges at this stage of your development. In those clips, you're watching the end product of years of work...hundreds of hours on stage, defining themselves and refining their acts.

None of your jokes are your "very best" yet--much less six minutes of your current material. While there may be some benefit to doing the same set of material in your open mic sets...as you might able to concentrate on other skills--mic work, stage presence, delivery, reading the room, etc...but you ALSO need to learn why jokes work, why they don't, why the same joke might work once and not work another time, how some jokes impact other jokes, etc.

You're going to need to work on EVERYTHING...so, don't stress on any one particular thing. Just keep going up...keep your eyes and ears open...and don't put any more pressure on yourself than you have to...

pg--Speaking from experience, as someone who has recently been doing sets as long as 90 minutes of solid, consistent big laugh generating material...there's nothing left from the first couple of YEARS of my doing stand-up in my current act. The jokes that are getting you laughs now are doing their job...but what you can write now is nothing like what you'll be able to write once you really start to understand what you're capable of...and what's expected of you. So, really...don't sweat it. Just do what you do, do what you can do, try your best to learn and keep at it...and let it happen.--seattle

PS--If you do read any of the books I'm suggesting to you...realize that you don't have to agree with everything in the books, and you don't have to follow every suggestion. I think that's why people have such trouble with people reading the Judy Carter books--because people tend to read them and follow them like they're Commandments from the Comedy Gods...when really, they're just guidelines to scoot you a little bit ahead of the other newbies who are just floundering in the darkness.

PPS--And the books I suggested here are just a few of a wider library of great books about stand-up comedy that you might find value in reading...but there's another whole thread about comedy books around here somewhere...

[ASR]

I read Franklyn Ajaye's "Comic Insights" a couple months ago. Great read. It really just showed me how none of the comics interviewed really seemed to agree on anything, haha. But yeah, great read. I'll check out the other ones.

[CaptainBreakfast]

Do you guys sit down and get yourselves to do some writing, or do jokes and material just come to you at various times during the day/week?

There is a virtue to sitting down and writing every day, especially if you are shooting for a job in writing for late night shows and what not, because it makes you be able to churn out jokes on a broad range of topics.

A lot of times, you'll also find that when you are not writing, just sitting around and having your mind be elsewhere, that all of a sudden you find something really funny. Believe it or not, but a lot of careers have that same experience. Scientists will be off the job, relaxing at home with a beer, and then the solution to there problem will be incredibly obvious.

I believe Ray Bradbury put it very well in his essay, "Zen in the Art of Writing", that the three key parts in writing is Work, Relaxation, and Don't Think. In fact, here's the download link for his book. Even though it's about writing literary fiction, most all the same rules still apply when writing jokes.

http://www.esnips.com/nsdoc/9bdc5a2b...action=forceDL

[bk1242]

^^ yeah I read that book too. Thats what really got me interested in trying to do standup.

[Brian J.]

I don't know about repeating material so much, unless you're refining it. I see some comics do the same 5 minutes for 2 years at open mics and it's not gold and it never will be. And if you're inviting friends to the show or doing bringer shows I don't think they're going to want to see you do the same set over and over. I always do all new jokes when I invite people to the show. Usually when you do a set only like 4 jokes out of 15 to 20 are going to get strong laughter anyway. Maybe you can keep those 4 jokes and then add all new ones and then keep the good ones from that group and so on and weed out all the sub par material until you have 5 solid minutes. And then scrap it (or put it aside for later) and get working on some new jokes. That's the most important thing.

[Kentock]

I keep reading about swapping jokes out and repeating or not repeating material, but I am not reading a lot about rewriting and editing existing material. Learning how to make a good joke great is more important than writing a bunch of jokes and then either dropping them or keeping them in the exact form in which they were conceived.

I think a lot of people would accuse me of "repeating" material at the open mics I attend. But I'm actually refining material.

[RubelT]

I once heard some advice from Larry Omaha that when you start out you should ideally wait about a year to two years before you even get up on stage. Partly he says is so that you don't get up in front of potential bookers and leave them with a bad first impression but more importantly that's when you can focus on writing. I don't know about the first part but there's a lot of merit to building up material which you find funny and discovering your "literary" comedy voice. I think you'll have more fun too without the trauma of first open mic jamming your creative bone so you can have a cache of jokes to work on and get you back up on stage.

[nathansmart]

But how do you know what's funny then? Because your friends laugh? Try translating that to the stage your first time up and get back to me.

[drieux]

If you're hitting open mics at coffee houses or bars that aren't comedy clubs, the chances of being spotted by a booker are slim to none - most of the bookers I've ever met don't spend their free time going out to watch open mic comedy. They see enough professional comedy to eventually drive them insane, let alone going to watch amatuers struggle with new material.

re: writing for a year. I spent about two years writing about whatever I thought was funny on a blog with a readership of more than a hundred people, most of whom told me for nearly that entire time that I should do standup. I'd always thought about it, but kept dragging my feet about it. When I finally did it, I tried to adapt some of my funniest blog material into standup material, and most of the time I failed miserably - the material didn't fit the stage, my presence sucked and I was such a wreck in front of an audience it was about the only funny part of the act.

Keep writing and get onstage. I'm only about three years in, but that's the only thing that works. It gets really easy to overanalyze and come up with all sorts of theories, but the times I've had minor bites of success were after I put in the extra work, really beat myself up over the writing and spent extra time listening to my recordings of my sets.

[forgetiheardthat]

I once heard some advice from Larry Omaha that when you start out you should ideally wait about a year to two years before you even get up on stage. Partly he says is so that you don't get up in front of potential bookers and leave them with a bad first impression but more importantly that's when you can focus on writing. I don't know about the first part but there's a lot of merit to building up material which you find funny and discovering your "literary" comedy voice. I think you'll have more fun too without the trauma of first open mic jamming your creative bone so you can have a cache of jokes to work on and get you back up on stage.

This was great advice in 1989, when every open mic was at a club and every club wanted to book 3 shows 6 nights a week. Nowadays, not so much. Get up there. All the time.

[RubelT]

But how do you know what's funny then? Because your friends laugh?

Because YOU laugh. I understand that there's no shortcuts and getting up on stage and continually writing are key Drieux, but the only way I see comedy as a win/win scenario is if you find what you write funny. The only reason I got into comedy is because I finally decided to put to paper thoughts that were cooking in the back of my head as I went through the most mundane moments in life . To be honest I've never sat down with the purpose of pulling jokes out of thin air yet, not that I couldn't do it I just don't know if I would have the same organic connection to it.

This was great advice in 1989, when every open mic was at a club and every club wanted to book 3 shows 6 nights a week. Nowadays, not so much. Get up there. All the time.

My first time on stage was at the biggest club in SF for the Stand Up for Diversity competition and it was crash and burn for the first 3 minutes so when I discovered Larry's advice later on I was convinced my chances of ever making it back there were done.

[nathansmart]

Because YOU laugh. I understand that there's no shortcuts and getting up on stage and continually writing are key Drieux, but the only way I see comedy as a win/win scenario is if you find what you write funny. The only reason I got into comedy is because I finally decided to put to paper thoughts that were cooking in the back of my head as I went through the most mundane moments in life . To be honest I've never sat down with the purpose of pulling jokes out of thin air yet, not that I couldn't do it I just don't know if I would have the same organic connection to it.

Hey, I've already said it once in this thread that I think you should do what you think is funny. But, if what you think is funny never gets a laugh, then maybe there's something to that. I didn't mean that you should just sit in a corner and tickle yourself. Even if you never consider the audience when you write jokes - not even once - if you're a funny person then there is an audience that will get it.

When you're performing comedy, YOU are not the barometer for what's funny anymore. I'm not saying that an audience's response is the only thing that matters (that can vary from spot to spot), but we're talking about stand up here - not self-reflection.

What I meant by that question was, how do you know if you're delivery is adequate? You can sit down and write funny stories and jokes all day but if you don't know how someone is going to react to your delivery of those things then you might as well just have a blog or become a humorist.

My first time on stage was at the biggest club in SF for the Stand Up for Diversity competition and it was crash and burn for the first 3 minutes so when I discovered Larry's advice later on I was convinced my chances of ever making it back there were done.

What convinced you that you don't have anymore chances at that club? This guy Larry's advice? Does Larry own that club? Or is he in charge of booking it? Did he see you that night?

[badinia]

This is kind of interesting, I found an old notebook with a lot of rejected material, material that I tried once or twice when I was a year in, and I've been going through and performing it, and a lot of it works now- I think the funny was in there all along, but needed a little more experience/performance to communicate it.

I wish I was more disciplined about writing. Some comics write every day, I write as the mood strikes, I think that writing every day creates good habits and discipline.

[nathansmart]

I think that illustrates my point perfectly. You could write for one or two years and have all of this material that when you try it out it sucks. Of course, if you were practicing during that two year writing session you might find that at the end of the second year, your first year stuff that didn't work out might actually work now that you have a grip on how to deliver.

I've actually gone back to some of my old jokes that never worked and was able to turn them into sketches and videos. That's always fun.

[Gene George]

My first time on stage was at the biggest club in SF for the Stand Up for Diversity competition and it was crash and burn for the first 3 minutes so when I discovered Larry's advice later on I was convinced my chances of ever making it back there were done.

So "Diversity" doesn't include new comics trying out material?

[RubelT]

What I meant by that question was, how do you know if you're delivery is adequate? You can sit down and write funny stories and jokes all day but if you don't know how someone is going to react to your delivery of those things then you might as well just have a blog or become a humorist.

This is why I say there's nothing that can replace stage time for that. I think if there's something that genuinely makes you laugh that isn't translating on stage, the truth of the funny is still in there. Sometimes the funny thing about it could be you and you're response to whatever it was but you never saw that. How do you change the vantage point from you experiencing this thing to you being a victim of it in the joke ? I think you need this kind of broad-based, no holes-barred dialogue constantly in your head as a comedian. Otherwise anything about you in the material will slowly get chipped away until you've completely lost your voice.

What convinced you that you don't have anymore chances at that club? This guy Larry's advice? Does Larry own that club? Or is he in charge of booking it? Did he see you that night?

No I just said that to illustrate the point.

So "Diversity" doesn't include new comics trying out material?

I guess not. Not even new diverse ones.

[nathansmart]

I'm not sure what you're saying...

You said that you shouldn't go on stage until you've been writing jokes for at least 1-2 years. I said that you should go on stage AND write jokes so that you get a better idea of how to write jokes (and not wait 2 years). And now, you're saying that you need stage time to develop the jokes? Doesn't that refute your argument?

I must be reading your post wrong.

[RubelT]

No I said you need stage time to learn how to deliver the joke, which was your question about how to know if its adequate.