Karaoke is more popular than mud wrestling and cosmetic surgery!

Google has a new app with the catchy title "Google Ngram Viewer". I was so excited, I couldn't wait to use it.

What does this mean?

At my behest, those nice folks at Google searched every novel written in English between 1980 and 2008. I tried to get them to extend this to 2010, but they stopped at 2008. I thought about going back and asking again just a bit more loudly to make sure they understood my request. I decided not to worry about it, though, since they were so nice to me. I figgered that it would be good enough just to complain about it passive aggressively in a blog.

They counted the occurrences of a number of phrases of my choosing. I decided to look up a few popular Saturday night activities: karaoke (in blue), mud wrestling (in red), and cosmetic surgery (in green). As can be seen in the chart, karaoke overtook mud wrestling in about 1988. Yet another wonderful that happened in the 80's. It was about 2000 that karaoke took over from cosmetic surgery as the preferred was to spend a relaxing evening.

In English fiction books written in around 2007, the word "karaoke" appears 0.00007% of the time. That means that you can expect to run across the word karaoke about once 1.4 million words. To put this in perspective, the typical novel is about 100,000 words. If you read novels from 2008, you would likely run across the word "karaoke" every 14 books.

In my own novel reading, I see the word karaoke about five times a day. From that, you could conclude that I read about 70 novels a day. It doesn't leave a whole lot of time for blogging.

While I was at it, I figgered I might just as well contrast the popularity of two very popular public figures. Since I had been thinking about mud wrestling and cosmetic surgery, I naturally though of Sarah Palin. Since I am always thinking about me, I thought we should have a face off. Sarah Palin is in blue and John  the Revelator is in red. As can be seen, there is no contest.

Rock On!

Karaoke and air guitars just kinda go together. What more can I say? Here I present a collection of pictures of people playing the inflatable air guitar while singing karaoke.

 

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How can a KJ help bad singers?

"I am a Karaoke DJ, what is the best advise I can give to my bad singers?

Only serious comments please. Please give me a list of tips that the karaoke singers can read and maybe try help their hobby. My karaoke is all about fun, but some regulars that come sing get despised by the crowd because they sing so bad. I don't want them to stop singing, although would like to give them some tips."

I caught this question on Yahoo answers. Here was my suggestion:

1. First off, whatever you do, keep it positive. Everyone is there to have a good time. If it's a downer, they won't be back.

2. You have to resign yourself to the fact that you are not their vocal coach. You can't do much to make them a better singer.

3. You can sway the response of the crowd so they don't dwell on how lousy the singer was. Keep things positive. If you keep the party going, then these regulars will not be despised. If the song rocks, get the crowd singing along. I use a second computer screen pointed to the crowd to encourage this. Stand up and make the universal symbol for "everybody clap along". BTW, I will not tolerate the crowd booing. Ever. If someone starts that, I will completely stop the music. Keep it positive.

4. If you don't have a monitor speaker on the floor pointing at the singer, then get one. Even a good singer can sound bad if they can't hear their own voice. If someone is fumbling, then crank up their vocal in the monitor speaker. Often this gets someone to hold pitch better. Also, it might get them to sing more quietly.

5. Turn up the backup music to the house speakers but bring down the vocals on the house speakers. (You can do 4 & 5 if you have an adequate mixer.)

6. One sound problem that I see frequently is people grabbing the mic by the ball. If they wrap their hand all around the ball, then their voice will sound muffled, and you will also get feedback. This is one piece of constructive criticism that you can give without offending anyone - how to hold the mic, (Did I mention to keep it positive?)

7. Speaking of mics, make sure you have a good mic. I use Shure SM58s.

8. If someone is not such a good singer, gently suggest that they bring someone else up on stage. "Hey... I bet you and Shirley would be great on that song." But keep it positive, and make sure the singer always has the right to decide who joins them on stage.

9. Sing along behind them. Don't use your mic... that would be rude unless you know they are ok with it. But if you sing so they can hear you but the crowd can't, then they might start catching the right notes.

Good luck with this!
John the Revelator 
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