Karaoke Forums

I'm sure many of us have patrons/singers who have their own personal, and unusual quirks...

For instance, I have a female singer, who happens to be in my age group, who never, and I mean never sings the same song twice... Not only that, but she doesn't ever want me to announce her song before she sings it.... afterwards is OK, but never before.

I have another gentleman who cannot read nor write, but is an excellent singer. Our "regulars" are aware of his 'appearing' to read the lyrics off the screen... even though the lyrics are those that he has memorized from audio recordings, and not necessarily those which appear on the screen.

Any other quirks you'd like to share...??

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Earl
(BS, PHD & Certified CurmuDJeon)

[font=Times New Roman]"Growing Old may be mandatory... but growing UP is still optional."[/font]

I wouldn't consider what you described of the illiterate person to be a quirk. That's probably a well-developed front he has learned to do (probably from his childhood years), so as to cover up his learning disability from others.

I guess my quirk would be in how I introduce myself when I go out to Karaoke. I always introduce myself as "Cueball" instead of by my real name. Most people don't even ask me what my real name is (although, if asked, I will answer). They just accept "Cueball" as it. Sometimes someone will ask me why I go by the name of "Cueball," and I will tell them that I graduated from "Grasshopper." As far as actually getting up to sing, I prefer to be know as "Cueball." I consider it to reflect my true persona.

I have a singer that puts a punctuated "uh" at the end of every line.

It is particularly interested when she sings "Georgia On My Mind"

GeorgUH...GeorgUH
The whole day throug-uh
Just an old sweet song-uh
Keeps Georgia on my miiiiiind-uh

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-Chris

LMFAO-UH

Maybe you should have the singer sing JCM's Hurt So Good

are there other songs that have "uh" in them-uh?

I also have a singer that can't read, yet he acts like he's reading the lyrics on the screen.

I have another singer that sings a song that's not made in karaoke, but I found him an instrumental. He stares at the lyric screen during that song even though there are no lyrics on the screen.

I have two different girls who are both excellent singers and show good phrasing technique throughout the verses of the song, but then strain and scream as loud as they can on the chorus. Doesn't matter which song. One girl has such a big voice and sings so loud that I have her at about 60% volume on the mic channel during verses, and pretty much turn the mic off during chorus parts, as even the smallest of amplification on the mic channel is in clip and feedback city. I have told them each how much better they would sound if they normalized their volume throughout the song, and each have said they understand, but they always revert back to bad habits!

I also have two regulars that sing just under being able to hear them. No matter how low or high I turn up/down their vocal channel, they always adjust their singing volume to be about 30% under a proper mix. I have even tried turning down and off the monitor speaker , figuring they just didn't like hearing themselves, but had them complain that they couldn't hear themselves. Again, I explain that they have to sing louder, and they always say they understand, but never put it into practice.

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C Mc
KJ, FL

I've had some strange ones over the years..

One woman I knew, drank alcohol.. Can you believe it?

I have my own quirk. While I am a pretty animated person in real life, the moment I am on the mic singing for the audience, I plant my feet and don't move much. I prefer mics with stands over just holding a mic. Been that way for years. It has only been in the last year that I have forced myself to relax and move around more. But I am still not where I would like to be.

I also use the screen as a crutch. I actually know the lyrics to most of the songs I sing, but I feel as if I always have to have them in sight just in case and I don't tend to look away from the screen to often.

It is frustrating for me personally because I know that I CAN do it. I spent 12 years standing in front of audiences from 10 to 1000 people making direct eye contact with people for 4+ hours in a row. But i find it difficult to do the same when I sing.

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-Chris

I had (he passed away last March) a guy that loved to sizzle the "S" on the end of a song such as "only a kisssssssss could put the fire". RIP Angelo

I know a guy who is multilingual but will only sing in Spanish.

My "quirk" is that if I know a regular singer at a place I stop at occasionallyhas a "signature" karaoke song they feel is "theirs" (right now, that's Heart/Amy Winehouse/Aerosmith) and not much else,I won't ever request to sing it myself at that venue, even if I know I can kill it and love singing it.

Me too. I have so many songs I can sing, they just have a couple. I can wait until another show.

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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 got a guy that only like to sing foreign songs in French, german, Italian or whatever. but he's American and thinks he pretty good at it.

get's lots of laughs and everyone loves it.

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It's all good!

I have several "mic eaters" that continue to do so even if I demonstrate what it does to their vocals...

My personal quirk is only noticed by me. I have some songs that I sing from the heart at home for myself or loved ones only- never in public.

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."

"I Touch Myself" - The Divinyls

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-Chris

oh yeah, I had to take that off my list cause my wife won't go to karaoke if I sing it. for some reason she thinks I embarrass her.

myself i'm just having fun, I don't get it?

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It's all good!

I'm one of those who knows the words to the songs and the Que notes when to stop and when to reenter between choruses. I learned not to look at the screen but look at the crowd but not directly at someone else either, over their heads. When I look and try to follow the screen and one or two words were changed by the company that made the disc it throws me way off, and too many karaoke disc's and songs are like that. But then I played in bands most of my early life and have sort of an advantage, but I really think it has to do mostly with the love of music and how much one loves to perform. Standing at attention and not moving around even a little while singing is hard to do and if I didn't at least keep time with my legs or feet tapping my timing probably be way off. The spirit want's to move with the music, it's in the soul.

My quirks:

* a predilection for doing long or fast (sometimes both) songs without looking at the screen ("It's the End of the World as We Know It," "We Didn't Start the Fire," "Rapper's Delight") because my memorization is better than my singing (Jasaoke's band did "We Didn't Start the Fire for me as a reggae song. That was cool.)
* A need to interact with people--I tend to talk to people after they finish a song if I thought they did something well or, well, bravely attempted something. For me, karaoke is a social activity more than anything else.

Quirks of others around me:

* a good friend is the head of the German department at a high school, so he always sings "99 Luftballoons" like a punk rock song. It's wonderful.
* There's an older guy here who prefaces just about every song with "How 'bout them Buccos (or Steelers, or Penguins)" because he did it once, people clapped and cheered, and he has stuck with it.

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Co-host of The Greatest Song Ever Sung (Poorly), a karaoke-themed podcast

I have one woman who makes it in from out of state once every couple of months. She sings Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn songs with a strong set of lungs throughout, but believes that the most important note is the last one, so she blasts that final note as loud as she can and holds it until well after the song has ended. Every time. On every song.

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~Cindy
Karaoke. Because it's a lot cheaper than therapy.

I have one singer who is nothing but a big bundle of quirks. He made it onto national television once on the strength of a hilariously botched "American Idol" audition, and has become something of a sensation locally for his viral fame. He comes out to every one of my shows, begins every song by soliciting everybody to "get your camera phones out, you're gonna want to record this", and proceeds to sing in such a strange, grating voice that it's almost fascinating to watch. He couples this with his signature stage moves, including a strange, off-time dance that is entirely inimitable. He's gone through so many personas that I never know which one is coming on any given night -- he'll be a low-rent mafia flunkie with slicked hair and a track suit one night, a greaser with a pompadour the next, and lately he's been showing up looking like a Droog from "Clockwork Orange". It's a strange sight to behold. (He often invariably loses track of his microphone mechanics and accidentally shuts the mic off once per song, singing an entire verse before realizing it and then shooting me a death glare like I cut him off.)

I also have a singer who has to have his mic cut back to nearly nothing because of his sheer volume. In addition to that, he also tries to insert everyone in the bar's name into his every song, always in strange places. ("Blinded by the Cynthia! Revved up like a Dave, another Allison in the night!") He refers to this practice as "telling jokes", which I don't question any longer.

A female singer of mine can start any song perfectly before flying off the rails into ill-timed tunelessness. Given my profession, ill-timed tunelessness comes with the territory, but it's always amazing to me how wonderful she sounds on the first couple of bars.

One singer that has become a very close friend over the years cannot sing without finding everything absolutely hilarious. He has an immaculate singing voice and a tone I would kill for, but he ultimately laughs through every song he sings.

I have another singer -- who's participation I've started to attempt to curb because of how irritating the bar's ownership finds him -- who puts in a song, sings about half of it, and then resorts to attempting to rap the first verse from "It Takes Two" over the instrumental. I had assumed that management dealt with him because he was a good customer. I just found out last week that he doesn't drink at all, ever. I don't know what brand of sobriety results in such things.