Monday, February 23, 2009

Open-Mic Ethnography

Summary:
I decided to do an ethnography on the culture of people who attend open-mic's as well as provide some insight for someone wanting to do an open-mic for the first time. I decided to go to Revolution Cafe & Bar's open-mic, which is held every Wednesday starting around 9:30pm. I brought my Flip Video Recorder to try and document some of the people performing to get an understanding of what kind of performances were done at this open-mic. While I was there I talked to as many people as I could and basically interviewed them without their knowledge trying to get as much information about them as I could without seeming creepy.

Conclusions:
I came in with the hypothesis that there would be a common culture among the people there and that given Revolutions reputation as a music venue there would be a lot of music snobs. I was pretty much wrong on both accounts. The only common culture among the people there is their love for music. Other than that it is a place full of the most diverse group of people you can find in College Station. There are punk rockers, emo's, rave enthusiasts, country music fans, and pretty much anyone from any group you can think of that has a love for music. And as far as the music snobs go, people were very nice to me when I performed. After I played people would come up to me to say something encouraging about my performance. This out of their way behavior more than likely was a result that I told them before I played that it was my first open-mic, but it does show how receptive they are for new comers.

Videos:
































1 comment:

  1. Way to rock out. You probably had the most interesting ethnography of the bunch. I hope you enjoyed the experience.

    ReplyDelete