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karaoke IS live music


J.Paul

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When this came out of the club owners mouth I was beside myself......
Do not be a jackass and argue this point with the person that is booking you.
I got the date secured but am weirded-out that he honestly believes karaoke is LIVE music.
What am I missing?
Is that a common sentiment among civilian (non-musican types)?

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Quote Originally Posted by J.Paul View Post
When this came out of the club owners mouth I was beside myself......
Do not be a jackass and argue this point with the person that is booking you.
I got the date secured but am weirded-out that he honestly believes karaoke is LIVE music.
What am I missing?
Is that a common sentiment among civilian (non-musican types)?
Nah I dont think its common. karaoke is karaoke and live music is a band/duo/soloist. IMO
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Quote Originally Posted by J.Paul View Post
When this came out of the club owners mouth I was beside myself......
Do not be a jackass and argue this point with the person that is booking you.
I got the date secured but am weirded-out that he honestly believes karaoke is LIVE music.
What am I missing?
Is that a common sentiment among civilian (non-musican types)?
I would hope not, but who knows? In certain areas, it could be seen that way.

I know that at a few places I have played, the bar owners/manager complained about the bands that included backing tracks with their show and considered them a 'lounge' act. So those particular people would definitely not call karaoke "live" music.

From what I can tell, karaoke is popular because it's relatively cheap, it's interactive and it's a good way to get people that like to drink to come into the bar, something that isn't always the case with actual live music.
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Well, the person singing karaoke is live, so it's one step closer to "live music" than would be a DJ or a radio in a technical sense, I suppose. And one step below the solo guy-playing-to-tracks.

I think the distinction that needs to be made isn't so much whether it's "live" or not, but one of "amateurs" vs. "professionals".

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Quote Originally Posted by tim_7string View Post
karaoke is popular because ......., it's interactive
Yep
That's something that bands can't compete with.
Most good bands have some sort of element that includes or engages the crowd
but that can't wholly include people the way karaoke does. I think that's why it's skyrocketed in popularity in the same way Twitter has.

The old model is :
you watch we play

Their model is :
we watch we play

That's hard to compete with. Thankfully there are still enough people that just wanna hear good live music.
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Quote Originally Posted by nchangin View Post
Or live band Karaoke - they have interaction smile.gif
Yep.
That's genius.
I don't think we have one anymore in Nashville.
Big Jim Slade was doin' them at The Mercy Lounge for a while but not anymore.
There's one in Atlanta at The 10 High but they stopped or switched venues.
Do you guys have a live band karaoke where you're at??
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At the risk of being incendiary (not my intention,BTW) I think the comment is representative of the common perception that popular music is mostly about singing. TV shows feature vocal acts, and in a tight shot, nobody else is there on stage. Having a band or orchestra in the pit further contributes to the appearance that they aren't there, and the backing music just appears from the speakers. I could go on about media attention almost always being focused on the vocalist, but there isn't any real need to beat that horse some more. Mark C.

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Categorically speaking, karaoke is lumped into the live music category. In bar business trade magazines, solo acts, acts that play or sing to tracks, karaoke, bands....anything with a live human being contributing to the act of making music is considered live musical entertainment.

Where the frustration comes in is as G61 said, it's amateur vs. pro. But in a bar owner's eyes these days, pro do-it-for-a-living-bands are a thing of the past. Cover bands are mostly all weekend warriors. Now WE all know that weekend warriors can be deliver every bit the quality product as the full timers, but in the eyes of a bar owner, well that distinction is irrelevant. Very few bars can afford to pay what the full timers need.

So in the eyes of the bar owner, you are no different than a karaoke singer.

And if I was a bar owner, I'd finish up with "So get over yourself." But I'm not. That'd make me an a**hole bar owner. So I won't.

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Quote Originally Posted by Miko Man View Post
At the risk of being incendiary (not my intention,BTW) I think the comment is representative of the common perception that popular music is mostly about singing. TV shows feature vocal acts, and in a tight shot, nobody else is there on stage. Having a band or orchestra in the pit further contributes to the appearance that they aren't there, and the backing music just appears from the speakers. I could go on about media attention almost always being focused on the vocalist, but there isn't any real need to beat that horse some more. Mark C.
yeah, that's pretty insightful

Late night talk show bands are the only exception I can think (and perhaps The Voice band)...musicians that are featured (at least in passing), which BTW ~playing in a late night talk show band is still (probably) pretty high on most people's dream gigs (at least it is on mine).... anyone know someone from Arsenio's new show?
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Quote Originally Posted by 3shiftgtr View Post
Categorically speaking, karaoke is lumped into the live music category. In bar business trade magazines, solo acts, acts that play or sing to tracks, karaoke, bands....anything with a live human being contributing to the act of making music is considered live musical entertainment.

Where the frustration comes in is as G61 said, it's amateur vs. pro. But in a bar owner's eyes these days, pro do-it-for-a-living-bands are a thing of the past. Cover bands are mostly all weekend warriors. Now WE all know that weekend warriors can be deliver every bit the quality product as the full timers, but in the eyes of a bar owner, well that distinction is irrelevant. Very few bars can afford to pay what the full timers need.
Good stuff. Also very insightful.
There's still no listing for karaoke in Pollstar and many trades though.....Yet.
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Quote Originally Posted by 3shiftgtr View Post
So in the eyes of the bar owner, you are no different than a karaoke singer.
And in the public too. Which you can't really blame people. They don't know how the technology works, for the most part, or what work goes into it, so it really shouldn't be much surprise if they don't make much of a distinction between karaoke and a guy sitting behind a keyboard and singing along with tracks.

Doesn't help when so many of the solo acts aren't much better than a lot of karaoke singers and a lot of the tracks they play to are just pre-recorded music.

It's incumbant upon the musicians to make the distinction by being better, different and more professional.
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I get where the club owner is coming from; I just happen to disagree with the premise. Karaoke is fun, but it's no more "live" than singing along to the car radio....and I doubt anyone would argue that singing in the car or shower qualifies as "live music".

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Quote Originally Posted by J.Paul View Post
Yep
That's something that bands can't compete with.
Most good bands have some sort of element that includes or engages the crowd
but that can't wholly include people the way karaoke does. I think that's why it's skyrocketed in popularity in the same way Twitter has.

The old model is :
you watch we play

Their model is :
we watch we play

That's hard to compete with. Thankfully there are still enough people that just wanna hear good live music.
It also probably explains why there are people that will just suddenly grab my microphone or come up on stage and point to themselves to 'take over' on a song or two. I usually turn them away, unless it's someone like the bar owner. I know that it's a different world now, but our band is what it is. I'm the main singer and I'm not interested in letting other people take away my job simply because they are used to being up there on karoake night. It's a sense of entitlement that bothers me.
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Quote Originally Posted by 3shiftgtr View Post
So in the eyes of the bar owner, you are no different than a karaoke singer.

And if I was a bar owner, I'd finish up with "So get over yourself." But I'm not. That'd make me an a**hole bar owner. So I won't.
Exactly.
This is why I say "do not be a jackass and argue the point with the person that is booking you". Just get the booking.
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Quote Originally Posted by J.Paul View Post
yeah, that's pretty insightful

Late night talk show bands are the only exception I can think (and perhaps The Voice band)...musicians that are featured (at least in passing), which BTW ~playing in a late night talk show band is still (probably) pretty high on most people's dream gigs (at least it is on mine)
One of the main reasons I like shows like "The Voice" and "American Idol" is how good the bands are and I'm in awe of their ability to be so good, so diverse, and crank out so many tunes every week with what can't be more than just a bit of rehearsal on each tune.

Having said that, so much of what is on TV isn't anything more than Karaoke or Lip-syncing, which, as Miko pointed out, certainly doesn't help. Christina Aguleira sang her new single on The Voice the other night and I'm pretty positive that everything besides her voice was tracked. So if that's a "live" performance, then why not karaoke?

At the same time, musical performances on TV have been less-than-live for decades.
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So if that's a "live" performance, then why not karaoke?


 

Good logic.

If it's on TV ("...stay tuned for a live performance from......") it's a live performance.

If it's at a local sports bar it's not because it's karaoke?

By Dave's logic there has to be consistancy so if it's a "live performance" on TV (using tracks) then it should be considered a live performance at the bar (using tracks via karaoke).

 

I'll be over there curled up in a fetal position ~~~>

:freak:

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(Donning Ludite attire): Guido's comment about technology makes a good point. When there is no apparent difference between backing tracks and live performance, "the musicians" lose a bit. When a backing track is made using samples, that's another loss. Same for synth sounds that replace (for instance) a horn player. Ditto for electronic harmonizers.

 

But similar arguements were made with the invention and acceptance of audio recording, and then radio, movies, and TV. I dunno. As Ian Shoals says, "I gotta go."

 

(Removes wooden shoes, etc.) Mark C.

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Good logic.

If it's on TV ("...stay tuned for a live performance from......") it's a live performance.

If it's at a local sports bar it's not because it's karaoke?

By Dave's logic there has to be consistancy so if it's a "live performance" on TV (using tracks) then it should be considered a live performance at the bar (using tracks via karaoke).


I'll be over there curled up in a fetal position ~~~>

:freak:

 

Yeah, I just don't see how you can convince people who don't know better (and really shouldn't be expected to) that one is "live" and the other is not. So the distinction needs to be on "professional".

 

Because, pretty obviously, if Christina Aguleira walked into a karaoke bar and got up and sang a song, everyone there would consider that a "live performance", wouldn't they?

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Or live band Karaoke - they have interaction
:)

 

I been to bar that had a live band and you just sit in and sing. I felt sorry for the musicians who had to endure all of the awful singers that sat in to sing.

They were great musician and great band with KB player that dubbed on guitar but just hearing some of the people sitting in butchering the tunes was some what painful to your ears.

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Yep.

That's genius.

I don't think we have one anymore in Nashville.

Big Jim Slade was doin' them at The Mercy Lounge for a while but not anymore.

There's one in Atlanta at The 10 High but they stopped or switched venues.

Do you guys have a live band karaoke where you're at??

 

 

The band that does 'Live Karaoke' here, is the best paid band around these parts. They are even flown out of state to do their 'Live Karaoke' thing for large coporations, etc. They can play over 1,000 songs and have the lyrics scrolling on screens for the patrons.

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