Karaoke Forums

Obviously making a FEW people happy and letting them sing long songs (over 5 min) is more important, than letting more people share stage time by rectricting song length. The few customers I would loose by restricting length would be replaced by dozens more applauding my decision.

Like Earthling said "They didn't like waiting either. We struck a bargain on song length after that." With songs that long who listens? Or as the singer you don't care because you just want to use up some stage time. Is there that much more needed in those songs to get the point across?

I have it on Nikkodo SAV-P number 10, but it's a 2 or 3 minute version. I don't think anyone else ever put that one out on Karaoke.

But it also depends on the night. Around here everything is hit or miss. Some nights you can have 30 singers, other nights 5. Some nights you have a bar full of singers, some nights a bar full of drinkers and few singers. Slow nights, long songs are fine. Busy night, not so much.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

I seem to remember DK had the radio version of In A Ga Da Da Vida.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Again it depends on the song. Earthling was doing it to make a point. Hey You ALL wanna do 6 minute songs, then I got 1 that will top ALL of you with my 13 minute song.

Again I don't mind long songs at all. If an extra minute or 2 is going to make someone that upset, sorry. I would be hurting my show by restricting length. Many of the songs that get sung are over 5 minutes. I have to laugh at those that won't allow a song like Comfortably Numb 6:43 minutes. The actual singing part of that song is like the first 4 minutes or so, the rest can just be faded out. Freebird is a popular song, but it's 18 seconds over the 5 minute rule (I don't play the full instrumental version), is this one out? We get GROUPS that pack the stage to sing along to that one. But it just depends on the song. When American Pie is sung, sometimes the entire bar is out singing along, I wouldn't consider that a bad thing.
Yes sadly there are those who want more stage time because they can't sing so they sometimes purposely pick the long songs, so be it, gives people a great break to hit the bathroom or smoke. There are advantages to long songs as well.

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All the manus that I know of and have aren't any longer than 3 minutes or so. All radio versions. Not that I was serious about the full version - it is actually 17 minutes long I just looked, but it would be cool to have a LITTLE bit more of the instrumental added to bring it up to about 5-5 1/2 minutes.

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Yeah, add some of the drum solo into it.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Some people only care about how many times they can get
a microphone in their hands during the course of a show.
We've got a group of people around here that take full
advantage of the duet loop hole to be on stage at least
3 times in every rotation. Singer "A" always sings a solo
on his turn. and then stays on stage to "help out"
singer "B" and singer "C" on their turns. Of course, this
always looks like singer "A" is always singing 3 songs in a row.
Some people I know now boycott this particular show
because of singer "A". Singer "A" never sings a duet on
his turn and singers "B" and "C" never sing a solo on their turn.
They are strictly there to provide singer "A" with multiple
opportunities to sing. I'm not even sure if singer "C" even
utters a sound during his turns. It seems like only singer "A"
can be heard when it is singer "C"s turn.

Another place that I go to has a female singer "A" type that
actually sang 6 times during a single rotation the last time
that I was at her favorite watering hole. It feels like no one
in this place has the courage to sing a song without singer "A"
helping them. None of these songs are actual duets where
the original song is sung by more than one person. These are
just situations where singer "A" has worked the crowd to the
point where singer "A" seems to be on stage constantly.
Singer "A" is repeatedly heard asking others....
"WHEN ARE WE GONNA SING OUR SONG"?... which is
always sung on the other person's turn; while DIVA "A"
always sings a solo when it is her turn. GO FIGURE!
Five duets in one rotation and still has to get HER TURN
because she hasn't sung enough. That's worse than any
8 minute long song IMHO.

You want my "one free duet" rule. When I run a show, you get to be on the stage twice in a rotation ONCE. After that, if someone wants to sing a duet with you they'll have to wait until you decide to not sing a solo that round.

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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 don't mind long songs on slow nights... or even if it's early enough in the evening...

HOWEVER,

I do have a limitation:

No songs over 6 mins. will be allowed past 12:30am

(subject to my discretion only.)

This way, everyone get the "chance" to do a long song... provided they are there early enough.


(the longer someone is there clinkin' moolah in the till, the more liberties I will allow them)

i with most of you on the long song rules. I have nod had to really enforce them simply because my previous venue didn't have super deep rotations ever. When we did, the long songs never popped up.

This past Saturday was the busiest night I have ever experienced. I will have to confirm it but I believe that we had 48 UNIQUE singers over the course of the night. With the exception of a birthday party group, only 5 people made it to the stage twice. I had 22 people on the list before I put the first singer up. I know some of you may get that regularly but it was a first for me.

All of the song requests were for the standard 3-4 minute song except for the Rapper's Delight request. I would have sworn Karma told me it was 14 minutes long but I will confirm that tomorrow as well.

To be perfectly honest, I am a little brain fried right now. I have been running on 2-4 hours of sleep every night with only a few exceptions. I have been on the road for three weeks straight now flying out on on Sun or Mon and home on Friday. Basically flying home just to do my karaoke shows and then back on the road again.

Oh yea! Someone did request War Pigs early in the night and then changed their mind when they hit the stage. I am glad they did because it was NOT a War Pigs kind of crowd. My guess is that maybe 5% of the crowd would have even known the song.

-Chris

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-Chris

In my case of singer A wanting to "help out" singers B and C just to get more stage/singing time, I good with that, except singer A's mic is turned down real low. After all singer B and C are supposed to be the lead singers of their respective songs. When singer A learns that she is not as loud as B or C, I just tell her that THEY are singing lead, not her. Eventually she gets the message and stops trying to hog the stage.

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My first choice IS Sound Choice.

I typically have a rule that a duet will count for both peoples turn, so if someone is turning in a duet for another person that already has a song up, I go to the other person and ask them if they would like to forfeit their sol for the duet. And if the person who turned in the duet is listed on another slip with someone else, they will sing in the following rotation, but will usually try to get a solo slip from the next person.
I do bend on this rule if it's slower and more laid back, but busier nights it's more enforced. Although some will still play the system & not put anyone on the slip & call them up themselves.

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That's one thing that i've learned to not assume what the crowd is into or might know a long time ago. Even if they are young college kids or even older crowds (not geriatric age of course ). I've seen the young singing Frank Sinatra & lots of 50's & 60's, and i've seen the older people doing stuff off of todays pop/rock radio.

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I had a Michigan Supreme Court Justice (almost 75) sing a really off-the-wall rock song..... Surprised the snot outta me!

He arrived to the engagement before anyone else and did it before the other guests arrived... then meekly became a distinguished and quiet Justice again...

Had something similar with an older guy, probably later 60's early 70's i'd guess, brought in his own disc & sung SexyBack - Justin Timberlake. And did a halfway decent job at it! Even did some choreograph dancing on stage.

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I get those singer 'A', 'B', 'C' situations also. Particularly one group of three women. Singer 'A' is the only one that really sings.. and I had to have a talk with her awhile back. I told her that each person is allowed a turn and that person can bring anyone up with them on their turn as they like, BUT the person whose turn it is... HAS to sing.. just standing there so 'A' can sing twice in one round will not be tolerated. I skipped 'A' one night to make my point and told her later that she wasn't following the rules. They're still doing the 'helping each other out' thing, but the other two ARE singing now.. and actually do 'We belong together' really well! I do get irritated when people try to trick the system. It's funny how many other customers will catch on sometimes before I do. But makes me look bad if I don't catch them first.

As for long songs, this hasn't been a problem lately BUT a few years ago, I had a rash of ppl that would sing the longest song they could find, every time they got up. I was just about to put out a new rule when they stopped doing it.

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SoundChoice Certification coming soon!

Who cares what kind of crowd it is?? Who further cares who knows what?? If the customer hadn't changed their minds it's not the crowd's problem. Would they leave if they heard a Metal song?? If they would, then they aren't true karaoke fans and who needs them. I absolutely abhor Country music, and down here there is a lot of it sung. I have never left a place because of it, not have I ever change my song choices to please the crowd. I have a different way of thinking about this. To ME, it's about the singers, not as much about the listeners. It's the singers I want to please, that way they come back to sing.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Smooth, It takes 60-100 eating and/or drinking people in order for the venue to be able to pay a host a reasonable fee ($150-$200). If it was just the singer that needed to be happy you would soon only have 15-30 people many of which buy nothing!

My point is that you have to please the listeners to keep a good balance of singers to listeners. A place with 60+ singers in rotation would soon be the "place not to go".

Where are you people?? . Where my friend and I play it's all drinkers. No matter if the night is busy or slow, our singers drink. I'm one of them. No matter where you go, around here, the singers aren't drinking water, or tea. They are drinking beers and downing shots. I have been singing karaoke since 1994, and never have I been a water drinker, and never have I seen an abundance of water drinkers except maybe DDs.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE