Here’s our take on “performance readiness” for all of our students: if your rock stars want to be in the big end of school year show they should first attend our next two open mic events to dip their toes in the performance experience slowly.
We host open mics once every month at Hurley’s Grill in Stittsville for exactly this purpose, to allow our younger and less experienced students an opportunity to have an audience and see how it feels to really perform, but at a much smaller venue, and with lots less pressure than at the big concert in June. There were over 250 people at our January rock show at Greenfield’s compared to about 20-30 people at most of the Sunday open mic events.
We are big fans of encouraging bravery – even for newer students who haven’t had many lessons yet. However, we also usually don’t push performing at our bigger shows until the kids have had at least one year of lessons. Having said that, many students are ready sooner and in such cases they are absolutely welcome to join the show.
Why don’t you ask your rock star to try performing at our next open mic event on Sunday, April 24th at 2pm and/or the following month at the same time, on Sunday, May 30? We post a reminder on our Facebook page and there is also a registration form on our website to sign up for all the open mics before the big concert.
A couple of things every student needs to know before signing up for open mic events: all singers should be able to sing at least one full song with a karaoke track (no vocals on it) and must know all the words by heart as there is no monitor with lyrics like we have at lessons. They must also bring their own backing track to all the open mic shows (a YouTube karaoke music track on a phone or MP3 player). At our big concerts we take care of all the backing tracks but at open mics the kids are responsible to bring what they need to accompany themselves.
Guitar & ukulele students: must bring everything they need except an amplifier, one will be provided. Drum students unfortunately don’t have the option to do open mics as there is no drum kit on site at our smaller shows due to space restrictions. However, they are welcome to bring their own small e-kit and they can also bring a portable drum box (cajon) to this event if they’d like to perform. Or, they can just come and watch too to see what it’s all about.
Our open mic shows are a great opportunity for the newer students to also watch some of our more experienced performers, as many of them do attend all our open mic events to get more experience and work on their performance skills.
If your rock star decides not to perform at our big rock concert in June that’s totally OK. We do hope they will all come to watch the show and see what it’s all about and be inspired to try it next year. Most first year students are quite happy to just be in the audience for the June show but some just can’t wait to get up there and enjoy the spotlight. ????