Karaoke Forums

One of the odd things about our business is that there are certain things we can control and certain things we can't. We depend upon someone else to provide the venue where we do busniess and that person is running a business too. There are times when the two conflict for one reason or another.

I don't think there is an ideal solution to your dilemma. Ulitmately the owner is going to have to decide what his goals are and how he is going to go about achieveing those goals. And that's his dilemma.

In any case the customers you are talking about are the owner's customers; not yours. So it's up to him to decide what to do about them. If I'm reading you correctly you are helping him make more money that he can make without your show. Now he has to decide whether he is willing to sacrifice a few regulars for the sake of making more money. If that's why he hired you in the first place it should be a relatively easy, although not enirely painless, decision for him.

What this owner will do is out of your control. But whether you know it or not, you may have become as important to him as the "haters". He may not be an experienced bar owner but it does sound likes he is an experienced businessman. If he looks at his receipts for the week and business is up substantially because you are there on Saturday nights and the haters are not it puts you in a much better position.

In my opinion the best thing you can do at this point is to keep on doing what you do well . . . putting money in his pocket. You can make the idea of losing you as repellant to him as the idea that he may lose the "haters".

Keep up the good work!

Larry

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"Life is too short for diet soda and lite beer"

One of the odd things about our business is that there are certain things we can control and certain things we can't. We depend upon someone else to provide the venue where we do busniess and that person is running a business too. There are times when the two conflict for one reason or another.

I don't think there is an ideal solution to your dilemma. Ulitmately the owner is going to have to decide what his goals are and how he is going to go about achieveing those goals. And that's his dilemma.

In any case the customers you are talking about are the owner's customers; not yours. So it's up to him to decide what to do about them. If I'm reading you correctly you are helping him make more money that he can make without your show. Now he has to decide whether he is willing to sacrifice a few regulars for the sake of making more money. If that's why he hired you in the first place it should be a relatively easy, although not enirely painless, decision for him.

What this owner will do is out of your control. But whether you know it or not, you may have become as important to him as the "haters". He may not be an experienced bar owner but it does sound likes he is an experienced businessman. If he looks at his receipts for the week and business is up substantially because you are there on Saturday nights and the haters are not it puts you in a much better position.

In my opinion the best thing you can do at this point is to keep on doing what you do well . . . putting money in his pocket. You can make the idea of losing you as repellant to him as the idea that he may lose the "haters".

Keep up the good work!

Larry

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"Life is too short for diet soda and lite beer"

Sorry about the double post above. I don't know how that happened.

I'd like to put in my two-cents about singers good and bad and enjoying karaoke in general.

I hated the first karaoke show I saw. To me it was a just a bunch of drunks who couldn't sing and who had no business singing in public. In short I didn't understand what it was all about. I can be a slow learner so it took awhile but gradually it dawned on me what was going on.

Once I began to appreciate the spirit of karaoke I began to enjoy it and I enthusiatically applaud the participants who are having fun. And that includes everybody, even the divas.

It took me awhile but I finally caught on to the divas too. They are having fun. It's just in their own way.

I encourage everybody to sing. And when they have sung I encourage them to come up and sing again.

In addition to my karaoke business I sing and play in a band. I make a portion of my living singing. I have few pretentions about the quality of my voice. I sing better than some people but not nearly as well as a lot of others. I have always thought of myself as an enterainer rather than a singer.

I have a great appreciation and admiration for people who sing well. But I make a distinction between people who don't sing well and are trying to make a living at it and those who sing just for the sheer fun of doing it. I enjoy being around people who are having a good time. That's what makes the show fun for me and that's why I host shows.

Most likely I'll leave a bar that has a band that can't sing. But I'll stick around a karaoke show where people are having a good time. I don't think of myself as tolerating bad singing. I think of it as being a part of someone else's fun.

Larry

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"Life is too short for diet soda and lite beer"

I've filled in hosting a bunch of times now, enough times that I feel comfortable doing it and I feel like I can make a couple of comments.


I can't understand why so many poor singers want to get up in front of people and sing?

If I stunk like so many of these people I would never dream of getting up and singing in front of people. When I fist started singing Karaoke I was really shy and reluctant to sing in front of people even though I sang in high school and was a decent singer. I felt that if I wasn't at least decent there was no reason to humiliate myself.

When I'm hosting I don't discriminate against anyone. Good, bad or whatever. I treat everyone nicely and never criticise or make ANY negative comments.

I really do wish some of these folks could sing better and I understand how some folks-non singers- who are there find it offensive. It's offensive to me too, but I'm getting paid to be there so I just bop to the music and I've learned to deal with it and it doesn't bother me much.

Because they hear themselves different than you do. If you want someone to stop singing, record them and play them back. (But don't.)

Some people don't care. I have never cared if other people thought I was good or bad, really. I get up there and do it with enthusiasm, and get a really good reaction. I am not a great singer, but I am not terrible either. I get lots of positive comments, though I am probably not seeing the people wincing in the corner.

Went out to a Friday karaoke tonight, first time in a while. One guy did Wanted Dead Or Alive then Simple Man, and after the second one I said "I hope he doesn't know many songs, or at least knows some shorter ones". But he was loving it. It gave a nice pair of bathroom breaks for the room -- I went and had to wait in line even though it wasn't that crowded.

Other people feel differently. They are the ones who hide the vocals back in the mix. My counterpart at my service club does this. He is not a good singer, and he tends to hide back in the music. That's fine, but I keep having to remind him he can't mix other people like that.

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[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

You said:

I am not a great singer, but I am not terrible either.

Many people are much worse than what you describe yourself as, at least at some of the places I go to. If I didn't participate, I imagine I probably would go somewhere else rather than have to listen to these horrible singers. I DO care and if I couldn't sing well I wouldn't do it in front of other people.

Because what ever happened to the premise if you have fun doing it - do it? Some of the most fun people we get are ones that can't hold a tune in a bucket, but they have the most fun doing so. Never would I limit karaoke to those who can sing.


No humiliation if you have fun & enjoy it. No one said karaoke must bring good singers!

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

But sometimes this even backfires. I record people & some of the better ones i've done have heard themselves & no longer sing - I really do not understand why, they were really good.

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

Why do they get up and sing? Because they enjoy it and because they are at a karaoke night...

I repeat this: Karaoke is NOT about being a great singer - it's about having fun.

And if singing poorly would make you embarassed, that's a real shame. Never be embarassed of doing what you enjoy.

I guess it's impossible for great singers to know how to have fun then??? Or is it that the great singers intimidate the less talented singers to the point where they won't get up to have their "fun" because they don't think that they're good enough? I don't care whether is a singer is good or bad. They both deserve the same treatment at karaoke. I find it very ironic that the better singers always seem to get a bad rap and the bad singers seem to get everyone's sympathy. The good singers get called DIVAS and the lousy singers are just having "fun". Why can't it be that they are both having "fun" but some singers just happen to be better at it? I think it's a case of "some" KJ's that don't sing well themselves, think that karaoke is all about goofing off and making a joke of it. They treat the better singers as nothing but "show offs" who come in just to make everyone else feel bad about their talent level. Just more jealousy, in my opinion.

Bruce, I wouldn't jumble everyone into a great singer vs bad singer classification. There are Divas, and then there is everyone else... And the Divas aren't always great singers (though, admittedly they are frequently H-O-T!)

You can recognize the "Divas" when they arrive with their entourage, act all smarmy, try to tell you how to work their mix, and generally turns things into a production.

You call their name, and they've got to stop and kiss and wave to everyone on their way up, then "hey, could you kick the highs up on my vocals?" , etc, etc.

Everyone else just gets up and sings.

The only part that really annoys me personally is the extra time it can take to get the person up to sing, especially if the rotation is long. On the other hand, I continually find myself completely amused at how self involved some people are.

I have found that starting the song as they walk up does quicken their pace a little... hee, hee. I'm such a stinker!

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Good music, good friends, howling good times!

I love Karaoke.

I'm so glad there is such a thing as Karaoke. You have no idea.

Karaoke literally changed my life!

I get paid to sing now and a couple of years ago I had no idea I had ANY talent at all.
I found out through Karaoke and I am grateful for it. I can earn a living hosting too and I am grateful for it. My confidence and self esteem has gone through the roof. I can get up and sing in front of hundreds of people and it's very gratifying when you know they REALLY enjoyed your performance and they're not just applauding to be polite.

Maybe some day I'll understand the below average and bad singers wanting to sing in front of other people. I understand that even the bad singers love music and love to sing, I just wish they would do it in the shower or in their car, not in public.

There is a reason I don't golf. I tried it and I stunk. I can't enjoy something that I am terrible at.

As others already stated --- Because they are having fun, and that's what Karaoke nights are all about (regardless of whether you are belting out a serious song such as "MOTN" or butchering a fun song such as "PBTDBL" (yes! I said that this is a fun song, regardless of how overdone it's been).

To answer your question a bit further, some people (that are terrible singers) just do not know how bad they really are.... Look at American Idol sometime (at the beginning of a season). Personally, I do not watch this show (except when I am forced to when I am at work (when my Manager has the %$**&$ TV on, and the volume turned up)). Some of these people are horrendous (almost to the point of sounding like fingernails going down a chalk board), but they think they're the greatest (and their friends even urge them on). Then, when the judges make their comments, they're all shocked and near tears, and insist that these judges don't know what they're talking about.

Now, some of these terrible singers know that they're no good, but they'll still get up and sing in front of everyone. This goes back to my first comment.

Boy I don't know if I can add anything new to what's already been said here but I'll give it a try

Karaoke is all about FUN. If I wanted to listen to EXPERT singers I would buy a ticket to the next PROFESSIONAL group in town, but that's not what it all about. The places I have been and KJ at do not always have the best singers but at least they get up there and try and most even shake their head and laugh when they know they did a bad job again it's all about FUN.

Along with that I have been to some PROFESSIONAL concerts where the opening band SUCKED big time but I had to sit through that so I could listen to the band I wanted to, so goes it with Karaoke you have to take the good with the bad and if you can't do that you might as well go sing to yourself in the shower and then again maybe others don't think you do so hot either they just show their appreciation anyway.

Get over it if all you want is perfection then you are in the wrong place and on the wrong planet.

Lone Wolf

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I like everyone when I first meet them. If you don't like me that's not my problem it's YOURS!
A stranger is a friend you haven't met yet

Did you quit after just a few tries? Golf is a hard game, but you can get better with lessons and practice.

Singing is sort of the same. My wife said it best, when she realized she has improved a lot in the almost four years since we started singing. She said, "As an artist, I know that the single most important factor in becoming good at painting and drawing is practice. I don't know why I thought singing was any different."

I believe almost anyone could get better if they took it seriously. I have improved a lot just in the past 6 months. The neat thing is that every bit of improvement gives me hope that I can become even better.

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[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

I have to agree with you. I have improved so much. I rehearse and go over difficult passages many times trying to perfect them. Experience definitely has helped me a great deal. HOWEVER, many of these bad singers will never improve. They are so bad that even if they improved somewhat they would still be terrible and different people have different capacities to develop and improve. I just wish all singers were just at least average. That would be far more entertaining and tolerable for the audience.

It's not a matter of perfection as Lone Wolf was saying. I have listened to lots of classic hit songs and the song was so great it carried the singer that was decent, but not a truly great singer. Not all professional singers are perfect or the best. Many are just very good and the music carries them. They are very good, not great singers, but they are entertaining and people enjoy the over all performance.

Every professional singer can't be as good as Mariah Carey or Vince Gill. There are different levels of goodness. I don't care for Bruce Springsteen at all. He's one of the biggest singing stars of the last 30 years. there are tons of better singers out there in my opinion, but people like his music and apparently they like his voice and singing style. I can't stand it.

Voice teachers will tell you different. Most people can improve given lessons and practice. They have taught many "no hopers" to carry a tune.


Just like karaoke is not about being good, neither is being a star. There are many karaoke singers who are better vocalists than some star performers. It takes the whole package to become a star, and the biggest part of the package is persistence.

I know a couple of major singers who were just bar singers for years. They would have lingered on in that realm for a long time except for simple persistence in staying in the music scene. They eventually got a break.

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[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Hmmmm... I wonder what BF4L would have to say about this... (ducking for cover real quick)

It's been said before, I will repeat it. Karaoke is s u p p o s e d to be fun! That means the average person going to a karaoke bar is going there with the intention of having fun. If the average singer goes up for any other reason,,,,,, what would that be? Whatever any person's reason is, it involves ,,,in their mind,,, having fun.
So if the so called "bad" singers want to sing, let them! Lower your expectations, maybe your karaoke experiences will be more "fun". That's what it is all about, "fun". A diva in my opinion is someone that either verbally or non verbally communicates that they think they are better singers than all or some of the others in the bar. Also, if they are THAT much better, why aren't they making a living at it and living in a 20 million dollar mansion? If it's not about having fun and compromising with all others in the bar, might as well stay home!

Nothing wrong with being average. The problem begins when horrible singers are told that they are average or better than average so they will keep coming back to spend more money and keep the KJ employed. These horrible singers begin to believe "the hype" and become delusional when it comes to their singing prowess. I don't think that every singer with a very good voice has to make millions of dollars to validate their ability. There are plenty of adults who were in the chorus or the choir or in the drama department when they were younger and karaoke gives these talented people a chance to enjoy performing in public as the years go by. They may not be up to professional levels but they are head & shoulders above your "average" karaoke singer. The "average" karaoke singer can be pretty lousy, depending on the venue. Some karaoke singers are painful to listen to. If that makes me a DIVA, I'll wear the name with pride. The lousy singers should get to sing as often as anyone else but I shouldn't have to enjoy it. If I hear a song on the radio that I don't like, I get to change the station. If the same thing happens at karaoke, I have to suffer through it but I don't have to enjoy it. I don't boo but if it's horrible; I'm not clapping.........unless she's really HOT!