My Philosophy of Karaoke

Karaoke is actually a Japanese word, combining the word "kara," meaning "empty," with "oke," a Japanized/shortened version of the English "Orchestra." Karaoke is extremely popular in Japan, and all of my trips to Japan, beginning in high school in 1994, have included a significant amount of karaoke. Last night I felt that we had finally arrived in Japan, as Kate and I attended the birthday party of a friend and belted some serious karaoke.



Having sung karaoke for so long, I have developed a personal philosophy of karaoke, which I would like to share:

1. The songs that I like to listen to are frequently not the same as the songs that work well for karaoke.

2. In general, fast songs work better than slow songs for karaoke. It is easier to engage the crowd.

3. I try not to select songs that are higher or lower than I am capable of, or songs that are too vocally challenging. If you are going to sing a complex song, you had better have a great voice, like Dan Zimmerman. I miss singing with Dan Zimmerman.

4. In general, karaoke events take a little while to get started, and thus I try not to be the first singer, and if I am the first singer I won't use one of my best songs first (Neil Diamond's "America," Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar on Me," or ULFUL's "Banzai, kimi wo suki de yokkata"). This particular rule dates back to Scott Selfon's bachelor party, when I sang "America" first and everyone stared at me like I was a freak. (Compare that to the end of the party, when Scott's Shomer Shabbas friend was heard to shout "it's not even 3 am yet!").

5. I try to alternate between songs that I know I can do well and songs that I want to try out, because the audience will be more forgiving of mistakes if they hear me doing good stuff as well.