Let’s consider open mic performance as something more than a steppingstone to something bigger, as something more than a rite of passage.
Think about Open mic performance, at its best, as a form of artistic expression in the same way that you might think about other fine arts such as novels, sonatas, paintings, or ballet.
Traditional aestheticians have ordered the so-call “fine” arts into seven forms:
Painting.
Sculpture.
Literature.
Architecture.
Cinema.
Theater.
Music.
What about Dance? Photography? Fashion Design? Video game design? And so on. That’s the trouble with lists. I bet you can name a few worthy additions to the “Fine Arts List,” some obvious, others a bit of a stretch. What about vaitaliki vidya, the art of awakening the guru with music at dawn? What about the art of conversation? What about formal criticism, the art of talking about art? (Is that a real thing? Yep.)
Let’s zero in on the art of music and create our own list of the elements that make up musical art: melody, beat, tempo, timbre (pronounce tam-burr), texture, rhythm, harmony, length, arrangement, pitch, mode, dynamics, character, and story.
You could certainly add variety, surprise, hook, lyrics, and rhyme. No one would blame you.
Every time you get a three-song set ready for performance down at The Club, you cook up combinations of these artistic elements, some more than others, some consciously, some intuitively, into a magical recipe called music.
Yes. And because you’ll be performing that music in front of an audience of strangers, you’ll be adding the ingredients of optics and compositional aesthetics, amplification, EQ, balance, and various effects such as reverb, delay, looping, and chorus. And don’t forget the skills we’ll be working on during these Open Mic Tips articles and in the workshops at the Reno Ukulele Festival : microphone expertise, stage presence, warmth, engagement, clothing, position, eye contact, smiling. What did we leave out? Oh, yes, choice of material, preparation and practice, order of songs in your set, adapting to new environments, etiquette, and open mic culture down at The Club.
That’s a lot of “art,” isn’t it?
Dear artists, I have engaged in many entertainment forms in my long life. I’ve been a drummer, guitarist, actor, director, scene designer, playwright, professional storyteller, and novelist. I’ve danced in a couple of shows, though not very well; thank God there are no videos. I even made a Hollywood movie once upon a time, and I beg you, beg you, do not try to find that turkey; yes, it’s that bad, and I would be horribly embarrassed were it resurrected. Capiche?
Let me wrap this up by repeating that open mic performance is a fine art in and of itself. Performing a three-song set down at The Club is fully as demanding and absolutely as satisfying as any art to which I have turned my hand. Open mic is not a second-class form—not if you go about it the right way. Take classes, study, practice every day, buy a decent ukulele(s), work your tookus off and your fingertips to the bone.
An essential ingredient of artistic expression is an audience. If it stays in your head, if it hides behind closed doors, it ain’t art. It’s something else. Spare me that “if I played my ukulele in the forest and nobody heard it, would it still be art?” nonsense.
What you do at Open Mic is a big deal--as big as you want to make it.