7 ways to get out of doing a musical improv comedy class

Who me? Sing?

I fantasise about walking out onto the street and throwing a large hoop around 12 random people and bringing them into a musical improv comedy class.  Once people are in the room we can work with their insecurities and perfectly valid defences around a situation that many people find stressful.  Getting people into the room is a different matter and over the years I have been playing and facilitating musical improv comedy, or musical improv theatre I have heard many of the same defensive phrases thrown at me like flashbangs - designed to temporarily blind me so they can run away or kill me.  Here are the most common.
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1. I could never do that.
This is a totally understandable reaction for an audience member who has just witnessed musical improv comedy on stage.  However, in all the time I have been playing for and facilitating, I have never come across anybody who managed to fail when they gave it a try.  Failing is simply not an available option.  How can you get a tune wrong that does not exist?  How can you get lyrics wrong when you are writing them?  I guess the only way to actually fail is simply to refuse to join in at all but that would be like saying I lost a game of chess simply because I didn't sit down to play.

2. You have to be able to sing, and I can't.
Again, this is the go to defense for anyone who is terrified by the thought of singing in front of other people.  Personally I far prefer to work with people who have not got trained voices.  It is easier to put up defences if you have a wonderfully trained voice.  A huge vibrato soprano voice is not at all useful in the vast majority of improvised songs.  Your own voice is the gateway to your personality and this is where the gold lies.

3. I'm not funny
This may very well be true in the 'sitting-in-a-pub-bantering-with-my-loud-and-funny-mates' environment.  I am the same, watching opportunities for one liners go past like trains while other people hop on and off freely.  Humour in improv however arises from being natural, truthful and surprising yourself.  No jokes required, just the courage to step forward and be you.

4. I'm not quick-witted enough.
One of the joys of singing to an accompaniment, once you get over the fear, is that the music provides a lot of space.  More than a non-musical improv scene.  Songs are packed full of repetition, silence, gibbereish (ooohs and la la las) and extreme poetic license, so much so that I generally do not understand what the lyrics to a song mean.  The one that just popped into my head goes:
Black velvet and that little boy's smile
Black velvet with that slow southern style
A new religion that'll bring you to your knees
Black velvet if you please
I love that song but as far as I'm concerned it is about a piece of black velvet.  I know it isn't about that but I don't care - I love the music, the emotion and the memories of where I was when I would listen to it.  

5. I could never do that
​You could.  You can.  You should.

6. The very thought scares the life out of me.
That is what makes musical improv comedy such a powerful, immersive and life-affirming activity.  In the right setting where you feel safe and supported by those around you of course.  Conquering our fears is one of the most empowering and motivational experiences in life and yet it is rare that we get the chance to do it without an element of danger.  You can't get injured doing musical improv comedy!  Well okay, we have had a grazed foot during a rap battle but that aside - it is very safe.  It is a unique opportunity to confront that which scares us, defeat it and turn it into a positive experience, even one we would do again.

7. I'm busy.
Yeah,  of course you are.  That's fine.  Naturally you do not want to waste your time doing something your can't do and is terrifying.  That is why we should spend our time doing things we are perfectly comfortable with and that we are very good at...

If all of those 7 responses welled up in you then you are the person we are looking for!  You are in the hoop I have just thrown in the street and I am now dragging you into a room to face your demons.  Except I'm sorry to disappoint you, but they wont be there.