r/musicmarketing • u/natasharomanon • 3d ago
Question Open Mics with just backing track?
Wondering if anyone has done open mics with just a backing track even though it has instruments in it (not a rap song, a song with drums, guitar, piano, etc). the artists I worked with to record the songs are all off the face of the earth doing their own thing and I am not great at guitar to do my songs in public. I've gotten the advice of just singing over my own backing tracks but don't want it to look... bad when I could have a guitarists or others up there with me, but honestly my music network is so small. I really want to grow a community though and everyone says to do open mics and such to do that
So has anyone done it before? How was it? Would you reccomend it and tell me to get over my fear/embarrassment?
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u/SilverEarly520 2d ago
The people who are assholes about it will be the ones you won't work with, and the people who see the potential will be people you can collaborate with and expand your network until before you know it you'll have a live band.
The short answer is just go for it.
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u/Party_Butterfly_1079 2d ago
I perform almost exclusively to backing tracks. Simply can’t afford to hire a band. You’ll be fine. Just be confident, engage the audience and make sure your tracks arent too loud or too quiet.
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u/BlazingMusic_ 3d ago
Huge artists play festivals to only a backing track, you’ll be fine
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u/natasharomanon 2d ago
hahah yeah, but they are big and established and have adoring fans already. Plus a lot of them fall under the rap category which makes sense to use just a backing track, but in my case i have instruments, but I just can't play them well enough
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u/TricKTricK21 2d ago
Hey I’m a DJ and producer in nyc. I just threw this kind of event with ~6 singer songwriters and rappers. It went super well. I spun their instrumentals and they sang on the mic. It wasn’t an open mic situation though, I curated the line up. They each sang 2-3 songs. It took a lot of preparation, including loading their songs onto my usb (ahead of the day). It took a lot of organization and prep to do this. LMK if you have any questions.
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u/natasharomanon 2d ago
For the singer songwriters, you just loaded up their instrumentals? Was it awkward for them/audience?
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u/TricKTricK21 2d ago
Well they got on the mic and sang on top of their instrumentals. It was awesome. Why would it be awkward?
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u/influnza666 2d ago
I did. Make sure to put a little more into the performance and dont forget to have fun ;)
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u/Junkyard-Sam 1d ago
The people who will give you a hard time for this would give you a hard time anyway for something else. Some people are just negative, period.
We live in an age now where anything goes.
Look up Sleaford Mods live on YouTube... It's two dudes and a laptop, and one guy just hits play. But it works, because the singer dude is interesting enough and charming enough to the audience.
You just have to reframe it. Consider most live bands -- with all of their live guitars, real drums, etc. sound generic. Most local bands are incredibly forgettable.
At least with your backing tracks you have the chance of standing out.
The onus is on you to be interesting, though. You have to be confident about it. Not apologetic. Be a spectacle. Remember, your goal is to entertain.
So many people are so safe they're boring. So do this, but do it with style. Own it. It's not going to work if in your head it's a bad thing that you have to apologize for.
You need to twist your belief system until you see it as a benefit. A good thing. Even if others don't... And then take that belief and build an inspiring show out of it.
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u/CtEpicBroFist 3d ago
People would probably find it odd. You are better off just doing an acoustic performance of the song, with with Guitar, Piano or Ukulele.
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u/natasharomanon 3d ago
Yeah. Like I said my guitar playing is not great, especially with the songs I’ve made (some complicated chords) :/
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u/CtEpicBroFist 2d ago
There's ways around that, such as using a capo, and not including the full chord voicings. Also if you can play guitar then you could learn the simplified chord versions on a Ukulele, which is generally easier to play if thats the main concern.
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u/Meetmeundertheflower 2d ago
How did you record them?
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u/natasharomanon 2d ago
like my OP said, I did make them with other musicians, but those musicians are gone and off doing their own thing
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u/Meetmeundertheflower 2d ago
Ah right. You could find another guitarist to work with I guess?
I would argue open mics aren't the right setting for backing tracks, but it's art so do whatever you want.
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u/Carimusic 3d ago
I would add a coreography at least, costume, make up, staging, within what's possible.
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u/jmster109 3d ago
It just depends on which open mic you go to
There’s one I go to a lot that is fine with that but there are also some singer-songwriter open mics which don’t allow backing tracks and prefer real instruments
I would just ask whoever runs the open mic what their rules are