Loren Weisman’s blog is starting to become one of my favorite music blogs on the internet.

I know open mic night’s maybe pretty popular in your hometown. The open mics are pretty popular in my area, the Capital District, in Upstate New York. There are open mics all over this area from bars to cafes. I’ve seen some good open mics and seen some bad ones. I’ve seen open mic hosts run the open mic professionally and unprofessionally. I’ve seen a lot of ego clashing with other musicians on open mics too.

How to have a good open mic? Read this blog here, written by Loren Weisman.

Back in the early 90’s, when I was first starting out performing live. I started off playing a bunch of open mics when I was younger. I would pretty much do anything to get actual paying gigs. So I thought performing a bunch of open mics would be a good start. It would be a good start to perform live and help build my confidence up. When I first started performing live, I used to have stage fright. I used to get nervous and scared as hell, in the beginning. Now I’m not scared anymore and have 100% confidence performing in front of an audience.

Open mics are just open mics. They are not “gigs” or actual “shows”, that some musicians mistakenly call them. When I was starting out, I would play just about  any open mic. It didn’t matter if it was a bar or a coffeehouse, and I was underage back then, probably about 18 or 19, I would play at open mics at bars just to get my start.

As I kept playing open mics over the years, I started to get actual paying gigs out of that. That’s what open mics are for.

Open mics are for musicians of all levels, whether you’re an amateur/hobbyist or a professional musician, it doesn’t matter. All musicians are welcome to play at them. They are an opportunity to get musicians together. Meet other musicians, become friends with other musicians and share music with each other just for fun. They are also opportunities to get actual paying gigs and look for musicians to start a band.

I’ve seen open mics where I’ve seen musicians get treated badly ’cause they felt that he/she had no talent. It even happened to me too, sometimes.

An open mic is just an open mic. Musicians today still don’t treat it like one, it’s just that when you run into other professionals on an open mic, they’ll think that they are better than you. Just because you’re a professional doesn’t mean you’re better than others. If you’re a professional, doesn’t make you a perfect musician that you think you are.

I think the amateurs/hobbyists can be just as good. They can put on better performances and they shouldn’t have to get treated badly. I support and treat all talent with respect. Sometimes professional musicians that go to an open treat it like an actual gig, when they need to leave their egos out the door. I’ve seen it happen too.

I haven’t played an open mic or an actual paying gig in a long time though. I do plan on going back to performing live again, once I get a new batch of originals out there.

I love performing live. Performing in front of people can be an amazing feeling. It makes you feel stronger and helps make you a better person.

Kev