Stand-up Comedy Tips That Just Don’t Float
Being a career comedy educator, I have to say that many of the so-called stand-up comedy tips that you can find online are not only worthless, but can actually hinder an aspiring comedians progress on stage.
Here is an example among the many non-productive stand-up comedy tips that I found in my searching:
** Develop your comic timing by listening to yourself using an audio tape or preferably a video tape to play back your routine.
Heres my question:
How in the heck do you do develop your comic timing that way? Seriously?
Dont get me wrong-I firmly believe that objective self evaluation is key to developing a high level stand-up comedy act quickly. But the real key to that is...
You need to know what exactly you are looking for when you self evaluate. Otherwise, you are simply wasting time with little to show in the way of real results.
Now heres the big secret you wont get from the stand-up comedy tips that you find online...
You already have a natural sense of timing that you use everyday. It is directly related to your normal speech rate and the interval at which you take natural breath pauses when you speak.
Given the proper techniques, you can actually capture your own sense of comedy timing on paper and know exactly where a punchline belongs.
Let me give you another example of some of the awful stand-up comedy tips I run across:
** Develop your own onstage persona. This may take years to do.
Heres a better stand-up comedy tip:
You DONT need to develop a "special" persona for the stand-up comedy stage. Not only that, it doesnt have to take years to command big laughs from an audience.
The absolute fastest path to successful stand-up comedy is to be able to apply your own unique sense of humor to ideas, topics and observations that you want to talk about on stage.
Stand-up comedy tips that you can find online should never take the place of common sense. Common sense dictates that if you are a naturally funny person in everyday life...
Then you already have a "persona" that works. The real trick is to give yourself permission to be the "persona" or character that you already are.
If you are looking for stand-up comedy tips online, my advice is this:
Be aware that there is some really inaccurate advice being offered online. Subscribing to some of the advice provided in these bad stand-up comedy tips can really keep you from getting the big laughs you want on the comedy stage.
Steve Roye is a globally recognized expert in stand-up comedy material development and performance improvement. Check out Steves page for more stand-up comedy how to advice.