Karaoke 24/7The intoxicating appeal of singing online.
Posted Tuesday, July 10, 2007, at 11:56 AM ET
I've always felt uncomfortable living my life online. I have a MySpace profile, but it's empty. I don't blog. And I won't post pictures on Flickr if they feature me or anyone I know. But recently, I learned that I'm not completely opposed to Internet exhibitionism. When it comes to online karaoke, I'm a microphone-hogging fame whore.
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StumbleUponSingShot is, basically, a social network for people who think they can carry a tune. When I logged on for the first time, I found a karaoke sanctum where fanatics gushed over one another's songs, made friends (Hi, Vanee!), and thanked their fans with bizarre, New Age-y monologues. The site also tracks each song's vitals—how many times it's recorded, which members sang their own versions, and how those renditions were rated.
At first, I felt embarrassed for everyone. Who were these people dancing on their Webcams to "Baby Got Back"? Didn't they know anybody could be listening? But these people seemed to want an audience. They craved approval for their interpretations of Phil Collins songs, and they genuinely cared about everyone's opinions. That kind of earnestness seemed to belong to a different decade, a time before Simon Cowell found fame picking apart aspiring singers on primetime TV. All of that sincerity drew me in, and I found a lot of great performances. Each time I finished listening to someone else's performance, SingShot prompted me to record my own. I couldn't resist—I had to know how I'd be judged. Was my singing any good?
I should have been able to answer that question already, since I've long had a weakness for karaoke. I've been known to rouse a bar or two with Bonnie Tyler's power ballad "Total Eclipse of the Heart." I've also been known to bomb at the mic. One drawback of live karaoke is that you only have one chance to nail a performance. There aren't any do-overs when you miss a note or develop a sudden case of musical amnesia. And with so many people watching, it's tough to try out new songs—I can never escape my old standards, like "Fame."
The Web, then, seemed like the ideal venue for working through my issues with karaoke. After all, the Internet's made it easy for people to do all sorts of activities that are awkward in real life: networking, dating, even proposing. On SingShot, where I could scrap imperfect recordings with a click of the mouse, I would become a better performer without risking embarrassment along the way.
And so my online karaoke career began. I started belting out songs—"Heartbreaker," "Independent Women"—that I would've never dared to perform in front of a live audience. I stayed up nights recording take after take, track after track. But to my chagrin, the bleats that came out of my throat sounded feeble. My voice cracked on high notes; I had trouble with rhythm. The main advantage of a karaoke Web site, I learned, is that I could humiliate myself 24 hours a day.
I soon abandoned hope of mastering Pat Benatar songs—and don't get me started on "Me and Bobby McGee." No way would I let anyone hear these pitiful attempts; I trashed most of them immediately. The only thing more awkward was doing all this on Webcam, which I tried, then destroyed all traces of as quickly as I could. The first songs I uploaded were soft, unthreatening numbers by Dido and Patsy Cline. Next up were Sarah McLachlan and Madonna—again, fine songs but not particularly interesting. I preferred Salt-N-Pepa and Heart to Lilith Fair. But on SingShot, my vocal talents had reduced me to a cliché: an angsty college girl.
I decided that what had worked for thousands of SingShot members would probably suit me, too. I tried my hand at the Beatles' "Yesterday" and "Don't Know Why" by Norah Jones, the two most-recorded songs on the site. Just one stanza into Jones' hit ballad, the appeal was evident. The melody doesn't tax the vocal cords, and it's so pretty that even someone who's minimally talented (like me) can sound halfway decent.
According to SingShot, a whopping 27 people have been exposed to my biggest hit, Madonna's "Secret." To my surprise, I even got a few compliments. Claude27 from New York said the song had "super sound"; someone in the United Kingdom heaped five stars and kisses on me. Based on ratings from seven people (most didn't bother to rate me), the song earned 81 out of 100 points. In fact, all of my recordings so far got positive feedback.
So they liked me, flimsy voice and all. I quickly wrote thank you notes to my fans. When I sobered up, I realized I couldn't take the praise too seriously. (Based on what I saw, getting high ratings has as much to do with kickbacks—giving other members five stars in return for the same—as it does with talent.) But no matter—my confidence will accept whatever boost strangers wish to give, online or offline.
Recording a song is an exercise in self-scrutiny, but the consequences aren't always what you'd expect. Some performers on the site belong on American Idol (in the good way). Unfortunately, I'm not one of them. I've accepted the facts: I'm a mediocre singer. Worse, I've spent years singing in the wrong range. Turns out I'm a solid alto, more suited for girly ballads and mellow guy songs than big diva productions.
Still, I haven't piped down post-SingShot. I'm not sure that my performances have improved because of online karaoke—unless knowing your weaknesses counts as an advantage. But I'm less self-conscious about my singing these days, now that I know everyone has a fan somewhere. The other night, I sang "Total Eclipse of the Heart" to an appreciative crowd at an Irish pub in Brooklyn. I didn't get any do-overs, but I wasn't paralyzed by any of my old worries. Why not hog the mic?
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Remarks from the Fray Editor:
An apostle of karaoke, CyberSpaceMan spreads the good news of liquored-up singing in front of strangers.—G.A.
Remarks from the Fray:
Michelle Tsai's online article regarding online karaoke hit a tender spot with this writer. A few years ago, whilst living in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, I used to frequent a bar called the Border Crossing with spouse and friends for their karaoke sessions. Mostly country music with a smattering of old time rock'n'roll these evenings were loose and easily adjusted to, the host being easy-going a accepting of most efforts, even encouraging those less talented with promises of great things if improvement was seen over the weeks. There was adulation from the crowd, and one could easily see how the Joe Walsh album title "The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get" was arrived at because after three or four "smokes" one thought of oneself as a budding Garth Brooks or Reba MacIntire (hope that's right, memory fades over time) in the case of the ladies, and the crowd seemed to be more receptive to the efforts regardless of how flimsy or schoolgirlish the songs came out. Then there were those that were not so well endowed with the ability to perform before a crowd, a little problem called "Public Speaking" reared its' ugly head.
Public Speaking is not a little problem, my research has led me to the knowledge that one of the greatest fears that modern executives face is Public Speaking! There is a cure for those fears waiting in every karaoke bar from Anchorage to Zanzibar and points in between. Okay, at first I thought the word "Karaoke" was Japanese for "White man gets drunk and makes public fool of himself", not so anymore. Not now I know the hidden power that karaoke actually holds!
Karaoke, through my personal influence, helped a friend of mine into a better paying job, an improved personal relationship leading to a happy marriage and an improved sense of self-esteem and greatly improved his self-confidence. "Jim" had seen me performing karaoke at the Border Crossing and had been there, quietly in the background, watching as I tried new songs, failed and with my usual flippant attitude, getting right back behind the microphone and continuing. Quite like riding a horse, one will never learn if one lets the first fall destroy all following effort. I hung in there and learned to hear myself above the noise drunken din of the crowd and learned to ignore the jeers and acknowledge the cheers, eventually finding a niche and being a better-than-average karaoke performer. Something about Carnegie Hall and the words "practice, practice, practice" kept echoing in my mind around that time, and it seems to me that the message actually got through.
"Jim" approached me, telling me that he respected me for being able to do what I had done, telling me that in my own way I had become one of his heroes. Thanking "Jim" I informed him casually that he could follow in my steps if he wanted. "Jim" wished he could, he said, he just didn't have the guts to put himself out there like I obviously did. I pooh-poohed his comments and told him to put his name down for a song and that if he wanted I would accompany him onto the stage area and sing alongside (this was often done with 'karaoke virgins') until he gained enough confidence to go it alone.
The first session was something of a disaster, "Jim's" voice was keyed wrong, crackling, and due to what I can only assume was abject terror, kept failing him. Then there was something called "microphone etiquette" he needed to learn very quickly if he was going to be any kind of vocalist. Due to a photographic effect called foreshortening, where distance between objects is collapsed due to using a telephoto lens, a lot of performers appear to be eating the microphone when performing. As any good performer knows, there is a distance between microphone and mouth and one must project the voice to reach the microphone, otherwise all that's heard is a mumblyjumbly noise.
Another secret to public performances is not to look at the audience, to look slightly above the audience to a spot on the back wall of wherever the performance is. Most people are egocentric enough to think when the eyes are trained in their direction it is them that is being looked at; consider the story of the man sitting at the bar and the woman looking in his direction frequently with a quizzical expression on her face, when he approaches her to ask why the looks and the frowns she replies she is waiting for her boyfriend who is inexplicably late and that the clock in the bar is on the wall behind him.
Eventually "Jim" learned these little things and it gave him more confidence, and the last time I saw him he was doing just fine, his wife was pregnant with their first child and he had a job in Management instructing new recruits to the firm he worked for and he was excelling in all facets of his life. My influence, yes, somewhat, karaoke's influence, you bet your bottom dollar, if you know anyone with a fear of public speaking, or someone that "wouldn't do karaoke for quids", watch out, that may be the lion you need to show the tall grass to, and when you do, you will know the satisfaction helping another person can give. Fear of public speaking, let me help you, my first piece of advice is find a karaoke bar.........
--CyberSpaceMan
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(7/13)