Quote:
Originally posted by Sherri
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I had a problem with some people who owned personal karaoke machines, and could practice every day, against these poor guys who sang only out at karaoke, and had no means to "Brush up on their songs"
My solution to this problem was:
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Sherri, thanks a bunch for your post, and I don't mean to pick on you, but to me your post illustrates why I started this thread 2 years ago! Before I get into it, let me first agree with your premise, randomly picking songs and letting folks sing and picking the best of them is fair enough and would certainly be fun.
I didn't have a problem with your idea, as much as some of the words you used to explain it.
There are so many different ideas about what karaoke is all about. Your obviously a caring person and want to take care of your singers so you designed a contest for them to be fair. Yet, I can't help but take offense to your notion that "people who practice" required you to come up with a "solution to this problem". Now I'm not saying your wrong and I'm right...but for me....I would think I died and went to heaven if I had a bunch of regulars who went out and bought machines to practice for my shows!
Naturally these singers who practice stand a better chance to win, but remember they cared enough to go out and make the purchase and spend the time practicing. Secondly, you don't even need a machine to practice a song, a cd player works great. At any rate, I have a problem with the notion that the "good" singers are the "problem."
Besides, I've practiced songs a million times without the machine (in fact I don't even try the karaoke version until I know the song by heart). The problem is that it's hard work to learn a song, especially if it's brand new. To really learn a song I have to sing it over and over and over. Some might be able to grab a mic and hammer a song without any practice. But for me, I have to sing it until I can sing the song acapella from start to finish remembering every single word, with correct phrasing and correct melody, etc. Only then, would I want to step up and perform the song well for karaoke. (Non-serious singers actually believe the music and words will help them "remember" a song - The serious ones know that the opposite is usually true). Don't get me wrong I'm not a snoot, I do "Scaryoke" all the time as you describe and I love it. But for me to pick a song I want to sing, I practice it a lot!
The non-singers don't really care about singing well, and just hope that they heard the song enough that it'll come back to them when the pluck a song out of a book. Sometimes they get it right and sometimes they don't. I don't mean that as a put down at all, in fact I think that's great too, as long as they are having fun! It's kinda like when I go hunting with my brother in law. He's a fanatic, knows everything about it, spends the money on his equipment, and gets results. I go with him and don't take it anywhere near as serious and yet I have a great time because of the experience and for hanging out with him. It's the same thing (only opposite) when he comes to Karaoke with me.
To me, that's what karaoke is all about! It's about bringing the good singers in to entertain and amaze people with their talent while at the same time showing off the other skills or lack of them for the rest. Everybody has a great time! The good singer who practices gets his Kudos, the guy who can't carry a note gets the high 5's because at least he had Elvis's hip gyrations down pat, and such.
Your post to me illustrates the point I was trying to make when I started this thread.....how can you possibly put on a "fair" contest? American Idol had plenty of controversy and their system is probably about as fair as you could expect because at least all of America votes and whatever "it" is, all of America can decide "it." Even so there was plenty of Studdard/Aiken controversy created. The difference between American Idol and a local karaoke contest is that for Idol the controversy only increases the viewer ratings, but for a local bar the "viewers" are the participants or at least they know the participants well, and when your judges stamp 1 as a winner, they also stamp the others as loosers, causing almost all the."viewers" to be offended.
Again, I think your contest is as fair as any I've seen. I just think your comments reflect the larger problem....What is good karaoke.....my answer is: the great, good, fair and non-singers all meeting together to have one hell of a good time ... so who is really best? ALL OF THEM
Again, thanks Sherri for your post. Hope you don't think I was coming down on you because I wasn't. I was merely illustrating the different schools of thought on karaoke.
I thank all you for your posts, and hope to see even more. I too have done contests (reluctantly) since the thread has started and I've got a lot of good ideas that have improved my contests.