Karaoke Forums

This is coming after the wake of my "life is too short thread".  I've had this problem before, but this unfortunate event threw this into overdrive!  This has been discussed several times before, but this now...is a little bit different  I have a general rule that I will NOT play the same song twice in a night, with a few exceptions and certainly not 3 times.  Well the last couple of weeks, the friends/family have been coming back to the bars.  I got a dedication request for the same song 3 times in one night, because it was his favorite song.  Yes, they were almost all there the other time I played it.  Then ontop of that, there was a over handful of..."oh, will you dedicate it to"!  I want to do whatever I can to make/keep the crowd happy, but I can not go down this path too often.  There are other people involved here too, like the rest of the crowd that could really care less.....don't know the people and want to party.  DON'T want to hear one slow sad country song a night, let alone the same one 2 or 3 times.  I'm trying to work on my way of saying NO to certain requests, w/o coming off crappy or non-caring.  This is a hard one....MrD

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[highlight=midnightblue]MrD - KJ/DJ Specialist
Visit MrD on facebook - mrdsentertainment
& on myspace - larrynance[/highlight]

Yeah 'dedications' like that can definitely bring a show down.  Nothing worse than a good party developing, upbeat music, then right in the middle someone do a sappy song, dedicated to her baby that died 5 years ago, or to the mom that is now with God, or the best friend who was taken tragically in an automobile accident, or.....etc & so on.
It's a total judgement call, but you still have a show to run & keep the other people that didn't know the one person happy as well.

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It's still only karaoke.    You are not on national radio and the show isn't going to be televised.    You all make too big a deal out of the high energy show that has to take place 24/7.   You have no corporate sponsors to keep happy and you will not lose any commercial funding and you have no ratings to bow down to.

There will always be slow songs requested at karaoke.

There are going to be people that want to dedicate a song to or for someone.

Could be a wedding, birthday, death, divorce, graduation, promotion etc.

Are they paying customers?  Are they helping to pay indirectly for you to be there?

Since you are not a DJ and can not control the type and tempo and song content of any song played during the night, play the requests and shut up.    Your show will survive.   Or at least it should.

Chalk it up to being human and show your compassion to your fellow man.   The show must go on.

They will stop the sad reunion in a few weeks let it play out.

I can not understand how a few slow songs will kill your karaoke show and ruin the entire night.

what I would tell them is that for the 2nd time to play the same song, you'd play it when you close the night out. You're not playing just to them, but then entire venue... and they don't want to hear the same song twice, let alone THREE times.

Dedications... ugh!

One place I frequented had a volunteer KJ.  In her attempt to keep the show high energy, she would shut down people that were singing other material (or sometimes skip their turn).  She actually upset a couple people and drove them out of the bar.  And they had been there almost every weekend.  Now someone else is doing the KJ part, but those customers haven't come back.  Too much pandering to high energy.  Let people sing what they want and the listeners can develop a little patience--not a bad thing.

Hearing a song three times in one night seems a little overboard.  On the other hand, I remember one night where as a joke, everyone sang the same song.  It got covered like 7 or 8 times.   If a song has already been sung twice, I can see setting a limit there.

The KJ that I adore, poor guy just can't say no about song choices.  We've had songs that have been repeated 5 times in one night before.  The thing is, it wasn't that bad, because while Marcus can't say no, he tells them that if they are singing a repeater they don't fit into the rotation and that he will put them in much later in the show.  So he spaces them out a lot and we don't get tired of the song because it's spread out over the entire evening.


We don't really get a lot of dedications where I go.  Once in a while people will be celebrating an anniversary or birthday and they'll do it, but it's so rare it's not an issue with us.

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[scroll][glow=darkorchid]~I'm the girl your mother warned you about~[/scroll][/glow]

From a singer's point of view...   My general rule is not to sing a song that has been sung already that night.   If I have a song "queued" in my slips and someone else sings that song before my turn in the rotation, I will request the KJ to pull that one.

Requests are the only exception... occasionally I will get a request to do a song.   If someone has already done that song and they are still in the bar, I will approach them and confirm it is ok with them for me to do the request.  

It comes down to etiquette!

Thanks for the responses!  I also use the pull rule, if I have a song up and someone else sings it, or worse yet the host plays a song that I was going to sing, which don't happen too often because I try to do songs that most people don't do.  For that reason...MrD

to sw....
I guess I should've been a bit more specific.  Unlike YOUR 100% 'unknown' Karaoke shows, I AM ALSO, YES A BAD WORD, A DJ!  This dealt more with the DJ side of the show, but there was a couple of different people that wanted to sing his favorite song 3 times. Uggggggh!

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[highlight=midnightblue]MrD - KJ/DJ Specialist
Visit MrD on facebook - mrdsentertainment
& on myspace - larrynance[/highlight]

as a kj, I will go to another singer that has a song in their "queue" that's been sung that night, or someone else requested it already... only had one complaint in twelve years... guess it works okay! !

I just fib, say, "oh, there's a 2-hour rule about the same song...if you want to hang out, you can do it then."  Sometimes it's more than two hours into the show when it happens ... so nope, no second time for that song. Totally depends on venue, how many singers, who they are, if they know each other, etc. etc.  

I don't think it is possible to make ironclad rules about such things, just have to use common sense when the occasion arises.

k

I'm like Karen. I don't have any ironclad rules. I just basically try to go with the flow of the room. Which can sometimes get me in trouble if I try to restrict things when the room is busy that I let go when it's not.

If I'm asked to sing the dedication it's usually no not now. Or I'll do it when things slow down towards the end of the night. That's because as noted they are almost always slow ballads that totally drag the room down.

There is one exception. A young lady who died of an epileptic seizure last fall. She was a real sweetheart and a regular to the room. She wasn't a singer... just there to dance and give support to those who were. If I'm asked to, I'll sing Electric Slide in dedication to her. It was one of her favorite songs and she'd get everyone out on the floor line dancing it with her.

And they all still do.

If I'm asked to sing anything more than once it's always NO! That would be setting a precedent for the whole room to follow if they wanted to.

I won't sing anything twice.   I'll play any song i have over and over all night long if that's what they want to sing.  It pays the same.   It's their request and it will keep them happy.

I am a KJ.   I play karaoke music for singers to sing to.    That's my job.     Play it and shut up.    I get paid to do it.

I'll tell people if a song has already been sung.  It's their call if they want to sing it.  Not mine.   They are the paying customers.    I am the steady working paid KJ.

They are the steady returning cliental that keep my pay day coming and the bar making money.   I love them  :worship:  and any song they choose to sing, for as many times per night as it gets played.

Respect your singers.     It's all you have.   They are your business.

As a singer I don't want to listen to the same song all night long or even a couple times for that matter.  This is more irratating than being told it was already done.

And once again we have American Pie because YOU wanted it!  NOT!

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[shadow=deepskyblue]I'm impressed, I've never met such a small mind inside such a big head before.[/shadow]

I have a page and a half of Iron Clad rules, Karen... it's VERY possible. Maybe not for your show, but for mine, it was very, VERY necessary.

That's a bummer for you. I'm glad I don't host in a zoo! Maybe the rules are just assumed and unwritten because we just don't seem to have so many so eager to disrupt things in our area. Thank goodness!  

K

@zoo!

Well, maybe you like to replace mics that have been twirled and now the XLR connections are spotty because of the strain on the connection. Or people that stand in front of the monitors because they're busy socializing. Or you like customers that come up and try to sing along with the one who's turn it actually is. Or you like disrupting the flow of your show because someone's caught up in the moment and wants to change their song, when they had an entire hour to make up their mind to change it before that?

To me, rules are to assure a smooth show. I really didn't have any complaints, unless it was from a group of rowdies, and when they were told they had to do what the rest of the bar was doing, they oftentimes complied... or left.

Yeah, don't feed the manimals!  

Makes me so thankful, when I read stuff like that, that I'm not always on the lookout for rowdies. We do have our share, but it seems the regs. like to take care of them before I have to...phew!


k

 :banghead:  :banghead:  :banghead:

OK here goes - allowing someone to sing the same song that someone else JUST sang is wrong ......NO 2 ways about it .   Waiting for the next rotation or at a minimum 45 min - 1hr between repeats is good.  :)  :) -

I don't feel that a singer should be told they CAN'T sing their favorite song because someone else has but it should be explained that someone JUST sang it and we ask that they sing it again a little later.  :thinkin: --It HAS TO DO WITH SINGERS ...think of how the 1st singer will feel if someone gets up 2 songs later and really knocks out the song.....they might not feel to good about it ..maybe even feel like they are being SHOWN UP ????

even then Jam... you will subject your regulars and everyone else that's there all four to five hours to the same song two, three, heck six times!

When I'm listening to the radio and the same song comes on I just heard 45 mins ago, I change the channel!

There are a LOT of karaoke songs in circulation. What I tell the singer is someone else sang it already, and it's not fair to make everyone else sit through a song, no matter how kewl it is... twice in one night.