Your Set
Know all your jokes very well so you can choose depending on the room. Are they drunk and hopeless? Just do quick one liners. Are they a real comedy crowd? Give them real stuff.
When people talk about timing, what they really mean is not telling a joke so cold and amateurishly that with your intonation your demanding that they laugh at the end of this cheesy joke. What Sam Morill and many others do is start the first 1 or 2 words of their next sentence and this is better because if their gag bombs they just keep on chugging along.
Practice talking and thinking out loud.
This should help you anticipate responses/criticisms/roasts. Then you use meta-humor and point it out. Take advantage of your own inner critic. Hyper-self-awareness. A comedian should wield their insecurities because trying to keep ourselves together makes us fall apart. This is key in why comedian's brains when scanned show more blood flow to the sentence planning areas. When you're properly in the zone, time slows down, you can finish people's sentences and in the time you have, think of funnier endings or responses. And have add-ons to your own sentences "Work? That's pretty unique. Actually it probably is for around here."
Saying things out loud also helps you find the rhythm of the sentence. Memorizing your set gives you freedom to vary. And properly practice the jokes too. Vary the tone, prosody, pitch, facial expression and tempo until it's funny just because of those things alone. How long are your sentences? How much tone variation is there?
I would remember lines far better if they were all tied to a certain face i make or body movement or intonation or something to make it memorable and punchy and worth remembering. That's why i struggle to remember lines because they're all flat and monotone.
A set should seem like a stream of consciousness like a really long conversation.
Also read and write more regularly to improve articulation.
Unique, interesting persona. 1-3 main traits. Then you can speak and interact with a direction. A goal in mind. The audience needs to be able to process you. Normand "You've gotta have a hardcore persona to sustain attention for an hour."
People are more likely to laugh if they like you. Come off as humble (self-deprecating), smart/clever (wordplay) kind, honest, relatable (observations), vulnerable (embarrassing truths).
Build and release tension.
Build vibe at beginning of set. Address anything interesting about the night prior to you getting up, the environment, town, last comedians, break 4th wall, self-deprecate. Be very perceptive, like the 2 signs at foot-loose.
Always be trying to make yourself laugh. When you are good at that, you will find/build your audience.
Fearing failure will ironically stifle your confidence. Confidence puts the audience at ease.
Have some ideas and templates already sitting into prepared slots in your head for the right moment, eventually you will unlock more slots. Like how I start my set with multiple comments on prior transpirings. "Well it's a bad day to be..." "You see this [object]? This is [prior understanding of prior event]" like what Pete did with my windshield.
Focus on the externals, the audience, not yourself. It's supposed to be conversational.
Laughter is a tool that can be used to encourage laughter. Luke Kidgell, Pete, Burr, Chappelle.
Remember Mark Normand was nervous for the first 3 years and even when he's trying new stuff it feels hard and bad.
C.K is ruthless with hecklers/interruptions because his show is so to the word. Kidgell, Chappelle and Gillis can mess around more. More conversational comics do tend to get more interruptions though. Because they make it feel less like a performance.
Crowd Work/Jokey Mindset
This is what you want to meditate on, and do affirmations on, or take the expensive shortcut and go to a hypnotherapist for them to plant these in you. Because unfortunately this all has to be unconscious competence. You can't be thinking all this analytical stuff and be churning out quips.
Practice making yourself laugh and then graduate on to making strangers laugh.
Have the courage, faith and discernment to find the joke in every moment. When you really believe it's there your brain will really find it (or create it).
Force yourself into that giddy mood by smiling and laughing.
Follow your impulsive gut, in every split second it’s like you’re asking yourself what is the funniest thing to say/do right now? And because the brain is a problem-solving machine it will find it.
If you want quick responses then detach emotionally from what people say and their intentions behind statements. Focus purely on the words, you have to not care about their opinions, especially negative ones.
Piggy backing off that, you have to stop taking any and all things seriously. Nothing matters in this funny mind set, not really.
You need somewhat regular hang out sessions with your crew to unwind.
You want to feel the goodwill of your audience (their readiness to laugh at you). It spurs you on to be better. It gives you confidence to fail. This goodwill is the energy/vibe comedians talk about. This is what they try to establish with specially curated opening jokes.
I try to promote that goodwill by specifically riffing on the things the group has already laughed at (or had a strong reaction to) because that's fairly high chances of laughter.
Confidence and goodwill also stems from the feeling like they REALLY know you and still like you.
This is the real powerhouse of advice on this topic. So obviously the most common sense too. You have to do a dopamine detox and only train your brain to find joy in making others laugh and all of this will instantly become unconscious competence.
You also want to be constantly listening to and absorbing a lot of good comedy.
Be very observant. Catching everything that everyone else catches but MORE. Everything they have experienced is potential material. This can also mean rapidly scanning people for weaknesses to exploit in like a heckler.
Don't Fap.
Be subversive and unpredictable. It's easier to think about this one as actually just never being predictable. If you start a sentence or phrase everyone knows how it will end then alter it, tweak it, never be predictable.
Be a character. Or a Caricature.
Confidence is knowing everything will be fine.
Be excited and interested in other people so the act outs come more organically and free flowing.
Stay hungry.
Hyper self-awareness. Anticipate anything and everything that could come in response to you and your words.
Crowd Work Tools
Sniffing out contradictions and incongruity like a blood hound. I thought you were an IT specialist and you can't even turn your ringtone off". Again, like flirting. Congruity can also be good. You can manufacture ways to confirm what people have said rather than contradict it. "alcoholism" "Yeah i could tell from how loud you said that."
Similar to drawing a long bow, narrowing in on what they've said and isolating the implications of what they've said-false dichotomies, black and white fallacy, strawman. Essentially bullying someone.
Sarcasm. Just gunna lump this in with absurdity here. I really undervalue this one in my daily life. When you get asked a boring question or at least if you're telling the truth the answer is boring (good how are you). Be fun and straight up lie. It has to be obvious its a lie but you're being fun and friendly and its so damn easy. "How's your day been today?" "Not good I've ran over 3 old people" Idk something like taht. Anything that breaks people out of the mundane and surprises them a little bit.
Mocking, parodying what someone's said.
Echoing their words "end the show"-"end yourself" and it's brother parallelism.
Throwbacks. If you're quick you can find a way to link them to something negative maybe in relation to a previous joke you said "speaking of bacteria" or something that they themselves have said. Or simply something that everyone has experienced from the night.
Similar is Weaponizing. Like how Adam Sandler's characters will mock the way someone pronounces a word or something like this and make malopropisms and find a way to keep throwing it in their face.
Reframing context of what someone has said.
Raw honesty. Saying what you think others will be thinking. But if you can, dress up the subtext so there is a little bit of logic leaping, it will make it that little bit better.
Word association (controversial edgy-Anytime America comes up, you know a school shooting joke is coming: Kidgell is the King of Hack.
Idiom scrolling. You will land on some you may be able to keep in a mental slot for later.
Meta-humor. Stepping outside of the situation to critique it and commentate. Similar to add-ons I would say, being quick in the moment. “what do you do?” “Work” “Pretty unique! Actually it probably is for around here…
Gather data from heckler to weaponize (ask questions) or use anything said prior to the exchange as a weapon to smack them with. You could point out something negative about them or make something half believable up and then utilize human bias and presupposition to press anything into that narrative.
As soon as you notice something occur more than once, you've got a pattern, or an opportunity to manufacture a pattern or commonality "Mort's I've never seen this guy without baked goods!"
Quickly making up angles on the spot "man your parents must..." "What happens when you..."
Act outs for teasing. Mockingly putting words in people's mouths. "I drank so much laughter before!" "I didn't know which comedian I was gunna fuck with tonight but then this lanky cunt comes out and I just knew..."
Put them in the wrong however you can even if it's artificial to get them on the back foot. "what did you expect?" "Do you always plan activities you hate? Etc.
Bombing
Don't stress, you'll probs never see them again. Always have more stressful situations in the back of your mind, like being tortured or raped for perspective.
Also, your validation doesn't come from this. Whether you do well or bad you are loved by God and family. This is just a hobby you do because you get a kick out of making people laugh.
Acknowledge the bomb. Have backup lines prepared.
Bombing happens when you are disconnected, treat them like an individual, crowd work is about forming a connection not immediately seeking the gag. Ask questions because they also buy you time.
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