Karaoke Forums

When you pick up a karaoke songbook by ARTIST and you look for your favorite
(say ELVIS PRESLEY)

Where do you look first?
ELVIS
ELVIS PRESLEY
PRESLEY, ELVIS  

What's in your songbook and what is SIMPLER for the singers to find in a dimly lit room after 3 Tequila shooters?

Do you list
Beatles
The Beatles
Beatles, The

How do you list Duets ?
Tim McGraw and Faith Hill
Tim McGraw w/Faith Hill
McGraw Tim and Hill, Faith

Singers WHAT DO YOU PREFER?

Personally, I follow MLA standards for citing musicians and artists that include band and artist names, which basically follow standard authoring citation formats. I work full time as a writer and have a masters degree in English, so this makes the most sense to me. Please don't critique my posts based on my education, though, as I surely don't proof anything I type on this forum!!

Basically, the list should be sorted by the artists last name if they use their real name and the name of the band if they do not, and any articles at the beginning (THEs, etc.) should be moved to the rear with a comma before them to indicate that they have been moved.

So it would be:

Beatles, The
Presley, Elvis

I guess the arguement could be made that Elvis Presley performed under the stage name Elvis, though, so it wouldn't be improper to list it under just Elvis. Consistency is the key when in doubt!!

Properly, if there is a duet, it should be listed under the last name of the first artist given credit on the cited source, which properly in this case would be the original album from which these songs are taken (not the karaoke album, as this is a second-hand use and can't be properly referenced as the source). So if the album listed the song PICTURE as being by Sheryl Crow and Kid Rock, the citation in the book would read: Crow, Sheryl and Kid Rock. Even if it is someone's name in a dual citing, however, the second artist is still listed the other way, like:

McGraw, Tim and Faith Hill
or
Hill, Faith and Tim McGraw

For the sake of karaoke convenience, however, I personally TRY my best (hard to do for them all) to list it under BOTH of the artists in the duet, so I would list it under Crow, Sheryl and Kid Rock and ALSO under Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow (since Kid Rock is a stage name, it is sorted by the first letter).

I just redid my books this week, so I feel your pain!! It seems like every disc manufacturer cites songs and artists differently!

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C Mc
KJ, FL

Topher

Thank you for your response !!    You do list the CORRECT and PROPER way to list the Artists.  I am also interested in how the ordinary singer LOOKS up their favorites
Do they look for the proper way > or the Easy Way.......  I am interested listing my books the way most people will use them ....   Do they look for ELVIS or PRESELY
Do they look for BON JOVI?  JON BON JOVI? OR BON JOVI,JON .......
Do most KJ's use "THE" ...Rolling Stones?  or Rolling Stones, The

I guess whichever way I choose the key is CONSISTENCY ???

I'm not a KJ but I've got a big enough home collection for this to be an issue for my own personal list.  I tried to set up some ground rules for myself of how I would list things just for consistency, and in retrospect I think I would have done it differently.

First I decided to just omit the word "The" on group names, e.g. "Beatles" as opposed to "The Beatles" or "Beatles, The."  This has worked out OK, although there are a few oddball cases where it doesn't work very well, e.g. "The Who" being listed as just "Who," which sounds strange, or The Used being just "Used."  I made an exception for The The, which I listed as "The The" instead of just "The," which looks like an error where somebody forgot to list the name.

For solo artists I listed last name first, which is the convention for most applications.  Problem was, I started getting names of performers where I couldn't figure out if the name was a person or a group:  Franz Ferdinand, Remy Zero, Tommy Tutone.  Technically, if they're a group the first name should be listed first and if they're a person the last name should be listed first.  Making it worse is situations where the name is both a person *and* the name of the group, like Alice Cooper or Marilyn Manson.  In retrospect I think it would have been easier if I had just listed everything first name first.

If I had done this stuff on a spreadsheet it would all be easily changed, but I did it on a word processor, never imagining how many songs I would eventually acquire.

My advice: do it however the heck you want to do it.

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Reward: nine yen in drawer.

Most of the "ARTIST" songbooks I have seen from various KJ's tend to list under the surname, firstname format. ie

Denver, John
Jones, Tom

I prefer to use the books listed by artist over those listed by song title, and I find that this format works just fine.  I have seen duets listed under each of the singers' names in the "ARTISTS" books and in a separate "DUETS" section in the "SONG TITLES" books.

I list by last name if it's an artist, however it reads first name.  So if it's Tim McGraw
you would look under M for McGraw but it reads Tim McGraw.

I got this format & stuck with it ever since Pioneers first karaoke books came out around 1990 or so.  Originally my books were patterned almost identically - along with the 'first few words' of each song listed as well.  I dropped that pretty quickly as my books started to grow.
http://lonmanproductions.com/nodupart.pdf
These don't look as nice as the actual club book, the table lines didn't draw correctly on the pdf.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

I have problem listing last name first. Its the standard for English songs but when it comes to Malay/local songs it just does not work. I would not even want to think how it is done with Chinese, Korean and Japanese songs.

Now I list all my songs under Artist as first name first. Rod Stewart is Rod Stewart and not Stewart, Rod.

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I can neither confirm nor deny ever having or knowing anything about nothing.... mrscott

NO NO NO!  I have been drinking rather a lot tonight and the degrees of which I am most proud are of are in the field of booze consumption.  List the act by the name of the act.  If the acts name is Tim McGraw, list it under T for Tim and M for Mcgraw.  No one looks under "The" so that's right out.  If it is a duet by two acts list it under both.  Think like a drunk not like an english major.

I am addressing no one in particular now but of late a lot of people have been throwing their degrees in my face, so before anyopne else does it may I point out that if a person is stupid, and they go to college, they will come out with a degree: and still stupid.

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Okay, who took my pants?

Personal preference for my listings is alphabetically by first name for artists. Might sound dumb, but if someone asks for a Tim Mcgraw song, if Tim is the first word out of their mouth, it just seems like they would wanna start looking at the "T" section first, instead of "M". Nobody has ever asked me if I had a certain song by "Mcgraw, Tim".. etc. Also like Tom said in his post, I wouldn't have to worry about how to list bands like "The Alan Parsons Project", etc.

Prefer listing Artists, and Song titles, with the word "The" at the end, though, especially if some people don't know if a bands name starts with "The" or not. Ex: "Do you have any Rolling Stones?"

Probably not a big deal either way, as long as you're consistant. Still see books at other shows that list some single Artists alphabetically by first name, and then some alphabetically by last name.... ALL within the same book. Now that drives me nuts when I'm drinkin' and searchin'!

My last artist list I did was by first letter of what you heard - I figured it might be easier for people & got SO many complaints that they couldn't find anything, I went back to my last name method but listing the first name first.  So Tim McGraw is under M!  Our crowd was trained I guess - but I still get complaints, but not as many.

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My personal thoughts are that MOST singers are going to look up the Artist by the
FIRST NAME, LAST  
IE : Tim McGraw under "T"
IE" Frank Sinatra under "F"

Unfortunately using an auto program I re printed 3 books to review and found out I have Artists listed BOTH ways and now I want to change them ALL to be consistant
Besides it should cut down on the PAGES  ( and costs).

The whole "THE" thing is very subjective---but I think whether you use it or not it must be at the END.   I have been to shows were The Beatles ----were under "T"

That seems like a strange assumption to me.  If you go to Best Buy to buy a Tim McGraw CD, you're gonna find it in the M section.  If you go to Barnes and Noble to buy a Tim McGraw biography, you're going to find it alphabetized under M.  If you go to Tim McGraw's kid's school and look at the class list of students you'll find the kids listed under M.

This is the standard way of alphabetizing names in the United States, so why on earth would you think that people would throw that all out the window when looking at your karaoke books?

RE:
Why on Earth? ... Obviously you're not a KJ?
In my experience many things taken for granted in the real world are turned upside down at a karaoke show.  Black becomes White and Left becomes Right.  :D
and even that gets twisted again after about 11:pm.  Serious I understand your point and the reason I ASKED the question on not whats right or wrong but on what most's KJ's do and more importantly WHAT DO SINGERS DO AND PREFER.

Obviously there is a grammatical correct way to list proper names but the setting of a bar is not a BOOK STORE or a LIBRARY ---either way as you can read is readily used but the most important is to keep your song list and books CONSISTENT

Just like a library - the Dewey Decimal System (does that even exist anymore?).

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

I still think there is a proper way to do things and as the KJ, staying in CONTROL of your audience includes teaching them YOUR way of doing certain things, including the book. There are issues that come up that equate to customer service where the customer is always right, but as all KJs know, MOST of the BS singers will try to pull on you (like the infamous "I can't find ABBA in your book, will you put in Dancing Queen for me") is just unreasonable laziness or disrespect.

I get singers all the time that refuse to fill out a slip and want me to do it for them. They come up with every excuse in the book. The most popular one seems to be the 22-28 year-olds who say they didn't bring their reading glasses so they can't sill out a slip. RIGHT......

Likewise, there are many who say my book doesn't make sense to them so they want me to fill out their slip for them. I always start by telling them to tell me what they are looking for and I'll verbally tell them which letter to find it under, but I rarely have the time to fill the slip out for them. Plus, they always know they are caught when I tell them in my most sarcastic voice that ABBA is under "A" and they have to look it up for themselves.

If they still say that they don't want to fill out a slip or make some other excuse, I basically tell them that if they can't read the alphabet, then whether they get to sing a karaoke song or not should be the least of their worries.

Anyone with an IQ over 60 who can't find an Elvis song under E should have the sense to then look under P for Presley, no matter how I set up my books. In fact, I have a certified mentally retarded fellow that comes to my show and he has ZERO problems finding songs in my book.

99% of the time, the singers are just being lazy and unreasonable. You have to set minimal expectations of what the singer is responsible for during the show, a big part of which is filling out those slips (which is pretty darn easy to do).

When I first started out as a KJ, I used to try to fill out slips for those who pulled this one me, but found that when I was busy and someone would verbally tell me what song they wanted to do but not hand me a slip, a good 25% of the time I forgot all about them and they never got their song in, which of course isn't particularly my fault except that I should have never given in to them in the first place.

So, again, point being with the books is just make it as LOGICAL, simple, and consistent as possible, and help the singers that really need help but don't let the lunatics run the asylum. If you have a system DIFFERENT than the standard categorization system used in this country that everyone is taught over and over again in high school, then no problem, but you are going to have to work just a bit harder to train your singers to use your system.

Once you've done that if the singer claims they can't figure out where ABBA is, tell them they may just be SOL, at both your show and for the rest of their pitiful life.

_________________
C Mc
KJ, FL

Presley, Elvis

Beatles, The

McGrraw, Tim / Faith Hill

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."

One purusal through a book and somebody better be able to tell if Tim McGraw is listed under T or M.  If they can't (and yes they come to my show too), I'd prefer they just came and asked me to look something up for them.  I am a literary perfectionist when it comes to data (no degree needed to be anal).  :)  I probably spent 20+ hours proofing my last book.  I take out most of the Thes.  I list by First name first, and band names are listed by their proper names.  I just put my new books out last weekend, and I've yet to run across a typo, let alone instances where artists are listed by first AND last names.  Thank Bill for Excel!!!!  Oh, and if you want someone to learn a particular thing, be consistent in your presentation ... over and over and over again.

This might be slightly off topic, but I keep two series of books, one set by artist (last name first if it's someones name), and a second set by song title for those people who know exactly what they want.

At the same time I gotta ask, hasn't "Picture" been run into the ground yet?

Me too.



There are times I hear it nightly, then I may not hear it for a couple months.  Depends on the night & crowd.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

It's very rare when I have someone who's looking for an artist under their first name, maybe 50 times in 12 years.  I've never seen a book listed by first name nor has anyone ever told me of one (in  Minnesota).

The only exception would be Elvis which we list as "Elvis".  

People asking for help is common, and of course when I say help I mean they just want you to fill out the slip.  Like it's such work, whatever.  Sometimes people need help and hey, that's part of my job.  But when they say I'm too drunk I say, "if you're too drunk to fill out a slip, then you're too drunk to get on my stage."