Karaoke Forums

there's a cure for us, but not for the audience...it's called A.L.C.H.O.H.O.L.

Talent.

warming up my voice a little longer, and always lots of water. humidifier, i think more moisture in the air would help, especially in winter, when it's so dry.

Getting rid of my allergies!

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[updown]~*~ MONKEY BUSINESS KARAOKE~*~ [/shadow][/updown][/glow]

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Live Fast, Run Hard and Enjoy Life, you're only here for a short time. Respect you're neighbor and Hope they respect you, if they don't, they're not worth your time. Keep a song in your heart and a smile on your face. Peace and Love to you all!

I have noticed that when Singers quit just reading the words to the karaoke, and Learn to emotionalize and actualy sing a song. Then they start getting better. My wife was the worst. She tried to keep up with the words on the screen and not go past them.

The she noticed I hardly follow the word on the screen, but just use them for guidance if the words arent in sync, who cares as long as it sounds good.

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I'm Not Dead yet...... But every day Im getting Closer !

excellent post lizard....anddddd being the nosey person i am i went to see if you had subbed any songs yet so i could hear ya!   btw...you haven't, what 'cha waitin' on?  ;)

i haven't been out too many times to karaoke but i hope to remedy that...i love being in front of a crowd and feed off their energy and i think it will help me to let loose, sing and have a great time instead of worrying about if i'm going to mess up the song and make a fool out of myself.... (which i did big time the last time i was out...guess what?  it didn't kill me)

anyway, lot of food for thot in what you posted.....

I think anyone can be entertaining at a karaoke show as long as they have confidence. And I think the way you get confidence is just by getting in front of people and getting experience, and practicing the songs you want to do. I for one NEVER sing a song at karaoke unless I know most of the words by heart already. I think the words should be used as a guide, not relied upon. If I hear a song on the radio that I'd like to do, I usually burn a CD of it and listed to it over and over again for about 24 hours, and I pick up all of the words and most of the nuances. Then I'm confident when I get up at the karaoke bar. Follow that basic pattern and you'll be better than 75% of the people that do karaoke, whether you are particularly talented or not!!

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C Mc
KJ, FL

[font=Comic Sans MS] I agree, when I first started singing karaoke, I would stare at the tv and sing the words as they changed color, as if this was the way it's supposed to be done. As time went by, I gained experience and became more comfortable singing in front of people, I began putting more of myself into the song. More emotions began to show and I started to make the songs mine instead of trying to imitate someone else. I listen to the song and use the monitor as a guide. The more I put myself into a song, the more the song becomes part of me. Catch the "Spirit" [/font]

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Live Fast, Run Hard and Enjoy Life, you're only here for a short time. Respect you're neighbor and Hope they respect you, if they don't, they're not worth your time. Keep a song in your heart and a smile on your face. Peace and Love to you all!

You've got me wondering Lizard. Certain sports/arts we partake in are much easier to gauge progress in.. Ball sports for instance.  As critical a game as golf is with all it's intricacies, When all is said and done (barring cheating) the score of the player show's "how good" he or she actually is... Competitive sports such as tennis, football, we can get an idea of "how good" we are by a more obvious viewing of our interaction with our competition..  Yet even the painter, can more clearly see the results of progress (assuming the artform is realism, landscape, portrait and nothing more abstract or modern). Similarly chess, and even debate skill, become evident in a competitive setting....

Now in the case of dancing, I'm not sure...Seems the classical, modern, and jazz dancer CAN in time get an idea of how they actually appear during their own performance when played back...Yet is "our voice" so much tougher for us to discern, and possibly introspect ?  Is it that abstract a communication skill ?  Where the ONLY way we can understand where we rank in terms of "The conventionally good singer", is by other's reactions ?   I just haven't a clue... Interesting phenom. I suppose.... Yet we do know with psychological phenom.. Some people are never satified with their own physical appearance..  Some will always fault find, while other's appear confident and not at all reluctant to flaunt what they have in the adult industry...  Not sure why our own perception of our singing voice is so difficult to hear for some of us.. Yet when I think about it, the conventionally good rock and ballad vocalists I grew to think of as "talented", I have to wonder, "Did they sound this way the first time I listened to them" ?  I don't recall....Is the conventionally talented singer just a voice we've gotten used to, and nothing more ?

Finally, and ironically, it's the "smokers gravel" that I actually like in male rock vocals.. that slight husky sounding quality with some power.... I'd have to say two of my favorite "conventionally" good sounding rock vocalists are Burton Cummings, and David Clayton Thomas....I've also tried gauging my voice by Boston, Scorpions, Rossington, Journey type vocals....  These to me are "conventionally good" rock vocal sounds in a voice..

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

I agree with you that how "good" you are in singing and dancing is very subjective. I'm sure this thread was meant to presuppose that we are talking about this era's generally accepted norms when it comes to this. After all, all things can only be acurately objectified in context!

I think even ball sports like baseball, golf, tennis, etc. are all subjective in the same way in that the rules contantly evolve. We can make objective decisions of skill among equally judged peers, but who is to say that Babe Ruth was objectively "better" than Barry Bonds. In fact, I think if you want to ignore the evolution of what we consider "good," then I'd argue that Julio Lugo (former SS for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays) is objectively a "better" baseball player then Babe Ruth ever was. After all, he is stronger, throws harder, runs faster, and hits harder and m,ore difficult pitches than the Babe ever did. But what's important is the objective realities of his time and peers, and makes Ruth a better player in context of the time period in which he played. The same can be said for any sport. Even chess, I'm sure a legendary chess player of 100 years ago couldn't beat Canada's 2nd runner up today.

SOOOOO, singing/dancing are all subjective!! In fact, I would also argue that being what your grandmother's generation called "a good singer" is not NEARLY as valued in today's singers as being a good entertainer (i.e., passable singing skills, rhythm, dancing, attractiveness, marketabilty). Therefore, you can harken all you want back to the days of Patsi Cline and Frank Sinatra, but the reality is that their modern equivilents are Brittney Spears and Justin Timberlake, and that doesn't make them any less "good." I don't like it one bit and have my own personal preference as to what I think is good, but that is popularly, and therefore the closest to the current objective truth, what good singing is defined as today!!

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C Mc
KJ, FL

So Patsy Cline = Britney Spears......... Not even in the Bizarro world.

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I'm Not Dead yet...... But every day Im getting Closer !

I didn't even attempt to sing until I was around thirty five.  I'm fifty now so I have been at it for 15 years.  I had always played piano but never tried singing.  Then when I was 35 I made myself learn to play guitar.  While learning t play it I found it very helpful to sing along to find my rythm.  I began having others say that I had a voice, but as others have said, it doesn't sound bad til you hear yourself for the first time.  None of us sound like we think we do.  

When I started singing and then going to karaoke places I found my voice to  have a very narrow range.  A friend of mine who was already running a karaoke show at that time told me the voice was nothing more than a muscle and it had to  stretched and exercised.  He told me to push my voice by going to extremes both ways.  Practice doing songs that are not only in a higher key, but higher voice.  and then do the same with lower voices.  In the last 15 years my range now goes from Elvis's "Don't" to Eddy Holmans' "Hey There Lonely Girl."  YES, I don't smoke!

Bottom line: Practice, practice, pratice.

Kelly

You totally just ignored the rest of my post. You don't think today's generation values the "talent" of Brittney Spears more than they do Patsi Cline?

Brittney Spears has sold over 85 million albums. to date

Patsi Cline has sold a bit over 6 million albums to date.

Tell me again how you know today's world thinks Patsi Cline is "better"

I agree with you in my opinion, but am just saying there is no objectivity to it at all. It is all subjective personal opinion and about 79 million people who get to choose how they spend their $$ seem to like Brittney Spears better.

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C Mc
KJ, FL

I think that how well the sound system is set up has a large effect on how you sing.  At one place, when one particular KJ in running the show I'm convinced he doesn't put any echo on, and it's often very hard to hear the music you're singing to because you're behind the main speaker so it's pretty muffled.

I agree with you on this. The problem is that Patsy Cline was popular in her day, and this is unfortunaly the Britney Spears era. More kids have more disposable money than they had back in the day. But as far as talent Patsy and Britney were not compatable. Britney isn't much without the vocal enhancement that Modern Technology affords her.

Now on a note about Natural Talent My personal opinion is that Leann Rymes has a talent few have in this day. But then again opinions are like  a..........

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I'm Not Dead yet...... But every day Im getting Closer !

For what it's worth,...Patsy Cline's "Greatest Hit Album" has sold nearly 10 MILLION on it's own.  Not sure where the figure of 6 million total came from.

Kelly

I suppose what I was saying that some of you expounded on is that aesthetic preferences for style, or any aspect regarding conditioned preference, or habituation to style, is *ALWAYS* subjective.  There's always some element of variation in accordance with "the times", age bracket, and to a greater extent ones cultural norms...

I realize when pondering this, that what *I* consider talent is no more than a knack for mimicry. If a vocalist sounds like something I've grown to like, Naturally I'd like "their singing voice"..Really leaves no margin *in my case* for creativity in an artform.. Such a mindset leaves NO room for aspects of "my voice" either. How would I know if *I do*, or *do not* have talent ?  I couldn't know given my own staunch criteria for "good singer"... It also put's me up against some brutal competition.  If the tape recording doesn't sound like other's I've grown to like, I've failed singing... Makes starting, let alone pursuing an area quite tough I suppose. I suppose *to me* the conventionally *good singer*, in essence is nothing more than one who can impersonate.. Does this mean the other's I have not yet caught onto are *less talented* ?    NO... It means I am listening from a narrow spectrum called personal preference...

Interesting thread.

ADDED ON:

I suppose this makes sense.  I'm a decent *cover* musician. I'm not at all creative, nor will I likely ever innovate as a musician. My ear gravitates towards styles *I like*.. I'm subborn in this sense.  To those my age or older (incidently I'm not really five, that's just my maturity level), remember when Hendrix first came to the scene in the 60's ?  Today he's a guitar hero, yet when I *first* heard the guy, I couldn't stand him...Even around 1979 when I first heard EVH..  I didn't take to him... My VERY narrow criteria of "good guitarist", didn't accept these people as *innovators*..Heck, to me a good guitarist, and vocalist around 1977 was Peter Frampton.. when I first was introduced to *NEW* concepts, I didn't catch on to what these newbies to the scene were doing. I suppose change for some is harder than others... When talking about "talent" in any area,  it takes several forms... The innovator MUST have had talent... Obviously what "steven kaplan" thought wasn't what others thought, or think...  Yet technically, for cover bands to nail the original artists...We cover musicians also must have some type of talent...

Regarding this topic, I suppose Jazzybags answered what would help me most in a different thread.  "A vocal coach" in the style I like..



Babs brings up another good point of course... Chronic Sinusitis, and asthma doesn't help breathing technique, and projection needed...as well as energy required..

(Roller blading is starting to look alot more appealing, as is crocheting, and hooking rugs)

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

I think there are two stages:
(1) When you are recording & singing at the comfort of your home.
(2) When you are singing on stage in front of audience or Karaoke Clubs
    Should I Say..

On The first one The mixing for Adobe Audition makes me nuts or have not explored
that much...so I end up using Creative which does not have separate vocal tracks...
it's all in one...and if I ever think I get it right now it goes to the type of song that I
sing...for example Making love out of nothing at all by Air Supply... I knew I've sing
this before and could have done well..just don't know how to reach it anymore when it's too high..Is there any technique on this...once I tried going little farther from the mike and singing out loud and then it comes pretty nice... there are times though I really come short of breathing...so maybe It has to fit your voice pitch...
If everything goes well then comes this mike feedback(Lol)...  :wave:  
So I guess better mixing & more knowledge of recording would make me sing
better...

On the second one ...This is when the DJ turns the mike down low...& you almost can't be heard(LoL)....  :dancin:
and so The DJ or Karaoke Host also helps to make anyone sing better by not letting the singer down for whatever reason...

I ask some question in the paragraph because I know you are great...cheers..

Can Brittney Spear actually sing with a live mic? Been told she lip sync. To me she is more of a dancer than a singer.

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