Karaoké

The karaoké (カラオケ) is a way diverting of Chant er while following the words on a screen.

The word Japanese will kara (空) wants to say “vacuum”, and oké is the short cut of Orchestre in English or French, which can mean that the singer does not require that an orchestra is present to sing.

The machines with karaoké are made up of a sound mixer, one or more Microphone S and a reader of CD+G, VCD, Laserdisc, or of DVD which plays the Musique and which synchronizes the words which are posted with the screen. The machines which use a video format are indicated in certain countries by the term videoke .

The background musics for karaoké are often deprived of the melody itself, containing only one accompaniment, and of this fact avoid with the producers paying rights to the type-setters (in France it is obligatory to pay a royalty with SACEM). In other cases, their melody is played on a very simple instrument and low volume. Since many songs use the same sequences of agreements, it can be difficult to recognize for which song a karaoké bottom is intended, and it is easy to be mistaken in melody while singing. These funds are not adapted to be used for example as background music.

Origins

With the the United States

In 1958, Mitch Miller, American Crooner, records series of albums “Sing Along With Mitch”, (written Sing Along O Sing-HAVE-Length) where he does not sing all alone, but with chorus S of scouts, members of the Rotary Club, etc They take again to great classics of the Folklore and nineteen titles will be classified in American Top 40…

Jim Lowe presents an emission entitled “SING ALONG” on CBS. It will be presented then by Mitch Miller itself, (“Sing along with Mitch”), the public sings at the same time as Mitch, and the words are posted with the screen, a ball rebounds on the words when they should be sung, its small English name is the “bouncing ball”.

The Bouncing ball was probably invented by a technician or an artist of the studios of the brothers Fleischer. It was used to accompany by the songs in sound films of publicity or entertainment mixing filmed images and animation as of the years 1920, in particular the series Sound Because-Tunes . Betty Boop and Irene Bordoni ( It is my gigolo ) is among the first to have sung with the bouncing ball.

Also in these Années 1960 leave the series of discs Playback S called “Music Minus One”, on which many people will be exerted with the Chant.

With the Japan

The karaoke in Japan is a true social phenomenon and constitutes a leisure practiced very frequently by Japanese youth. With the difference of the majority of the machines used in Occident which are laid out in open spaces (bars, coffees), karaoké in Japan are generally establishments which have several rooms that the customers reserve in a privative way for a few hours or the whole night.

Tisaga Tagaki, a record dealer Japan board, notices that many people sing the songs which pass on the Juke-box, and it with the idea of a machine which would play the pieces without the voice of the interpreters so that people hear their clean voice.

It manufactures a machine made up of a Magnétophone eight tracks and of a Microphone and deposits the mark “Karaoke” and founds in 1962 the company Nikkodo Ltd.

For those which would have preferred more a beautiful story, a legend tells that with Kōbe, with the Japan, a singer accompanied by bands sounds worked in a restaurant. One day that it was sick, the restorer proposed with his customers to come to sing in his place, in front of the other customers. That rained much with the customers and the restorer continued to propose to them to sing, while the poor sick singer lost his place…

The same phenomenon also exists in South Korea where it takes the name of Noraebang.

Karaoké on computer

There exists several Logiciels of which the goal is to transform a Ordinateur into machine of karaoké.

Some use the format of files MIDDAY (files .kar, QuickTime can read them since version 3), others synchronize textual files with files MP3 (the format LRC is most popular).

See the article: Software of karaoké

On Internet, companies specialized in the production and the realization of karaoké with instrumental versions of songs to the format MP3. The files are used as a basis musical for the software specialized in this field.

New concepts

Karaoké takes a new dimension by accepting the orchestra which it was supposed to give up (see the translation of the Japanese word higher). We find it under a different name: KARAOKE LIVE. The words are posted as in traditional Karaoké, but the grass singers are accompanied by a true orchestra.

the project b-KAR

External bonds

Fair With the Questions about Karaoké
History of karaoké
Karaoké and the right

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