Dearest Rachel –
I’ve mentioned before that I’ve never actually had a chance to do karaoke, and it would seem that last night, that showed. I’ve always envisioned it pretty much like how the Japanese do it; a small handful of people getting together in a room no bigger than a hotel room, to compete as to who can sing this or that song most accurately to the way it was recorded. And as far as singing to tracks go – which is the closest approximation to karaoke that I’ve actually done – that doesn’t involve any more backup than the instrumentals (and some background vocals).
So when, at the orientation, Sarah made a big deal of the fact that “they take karaoke seriously” here, I assumed that I needed to find something I knew and could sing reasonably well – and since I’m not a Top 40 type, I’d have to create such a track (and offer to do likewise for others) to sing in front of everybody else. I even went so far as to create tracks for about a half-dozen songs, to give myself options – which in some ways, was a good thing, as it turned out there was at least one song I’d looked into that lacked any reasonable cues or rhythm to indicate where to come in with the lyrics.
But that isn’t how things are done in the West when it comes to karaoke, apparently. Rather than it being a sort of talent competition, it’s more of a singalong, using videos with lyrics displayed as the track – complete with the original artists’ vocals – plays.
Now that I think about it, this does rather make sense. Nothing says ‘party’ like a whole crowd of people singing along together with one or another peppy, upbeat song (and, for certain types of parties – not this one, obviously – there’s something to be said for needing a little liquid courage to get up there in front of a crowd this size – and you can probably imagine a similarly drunken crowd trying to sing along, both out of encouragement and recognition of the song). Of course, the fact that half the group was singing along to the Spanish-language songs while the other half looked on in bewilderment – and vice versa for the English songs – could have made things awkward, if you thought too hard about it. But then again, this version of karaoke went specifically meant not to be thought too hard about.
As for my turn, which was early enough in the event that there was plenty of time to get things back on the rails they were supposed to be, but not early enough that I was the first anglophone singer, I’d like to think I performed credibly enough. You know me, honey; I don’t get up in front of an audience like this very often, but I can hold my own once I’m there. Given the limited amount of practice, I thought it went pretty well; I think I surprised a few people, in fact (which makes it two days in a row like that; first, the fact that I actually got out there and put in an effort on the soccer pitch, and now this).
A few words about the AI program that generated the track, now that I’ve field tested it. It’s certainly powerful and fast – to say nothing of the fact that it’s free (being open source) – but it isn’t perfect, by any means. It strips out every bit of noise that it interprets as being human vocals; I’ve mentioned that this, disappointingly, removes the background singers, for instance. It also appears to mistake some actual music for vocals (or maybe it takes a certain “baby with the bathwater” approach to some of the noise surrounding the voices), and as a result, there were some moments where the music virtually cuts out; if one didn’t know better, one might thing that the record had skipped. The program is supposed to fill in these gaps with sound that goes along with the original music – just like how, with the various art programs, the AI backfills a scene when, say, it’s asked to remove an individual from a picture – but it doesn’t appear to be all that good at the task. Then again, perhaps the programmers decided to err on the side of not having the program “hallucinate” too much. In any event, it’s a serviceable setup, and in a party-like atmosphere like this, it could be given a pass, but it wouldn’t be particularly good for professional use.
With all that having been said, I couldn’t blame you for thinking I’m overanalyzing this whole situation. The thing is, I was told that they take their karaoke seriously, and as far as that goes, I think I understood the assignment; I took it every bit as seriously as I thought they would. The question is, is there a point where you take the idea of having fun so seriously that it stops being fun?
I don’t think I crossed that line, to be sure – I mean, I enjoyed the activity, both while on the mike (although I was shaking after I stepped down, like I often do) and while singing along with the crowd on someone else’s song. But I couldn’t help but wonder if that line exists, and how far one has to go to cross it.
And now, I’m overthinking about overthinking; isn’t that always the way? You’d probably have pointed that out sooner, but without you here, I have to figure it out for myself, and it takes that much longer before I realize what’s happening.
But if you can’t be here to nudge me about this kind of thing, the least you could do is to keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. If you haven’t figured out by now that I’m going to need it…
Letters to Rachel 