KaraokeHangouts

Many of us singing troubadours love and hate a good contest.  In this love/hate relationship, why is there an alluring aspect to them?  Maybe deep down many of us want to compare ourselves, and by comparison we are reassuring ourselves that we have a good level of singing talent; or we are trying to find out at what level of talent that is.  Maybe some just have a compulsive competitive nature and the need to win (at anything).  While some are either doing it for the money, or both. 

However, I think that we are short changed if we narrow the judging of ourselves to just singing.  Super stars aren’t measured on mere singing talent alone.  Many karaoke contests gauge other aspects.  Usually it’s singing ability, stage presence, and crowd response.  While I’m not the best singer (i.e. missed timing, an off note…), I have been given the opportunity to score well by my stage presence, or by finding ways of getting the crowd to respond.  I’m not a fan of “hamming it up,” but I feel that if the first two are done well the crowd will respond well.

I competed at WPLJ, during their qualifying round.  I liked the aspect of scoring points in these three categories.  Plus the fact that they did not have picked judges, but the judges were the singers that judged among themselves.  Of course there could be a slight factor of unfairness.  Possibly there might be a circle of friends trying to score their other friends highly.  I find that behavior to be a shallow one.  They are not being fair to themselves, and their friends. I am a very conservative judge myself.  I critique others very carefully, and nothing gives me more joy than to score someone highly when they performed admirably.

Other karaoke contests that I have seen were either mere “popularity contests,” or highly political.  I would say that in those shows you are judged by “not how well you could sing, but how many fans you could bring.”  This contest at WPLJ’s had a more fair judging aspect. 

I like to think that the best judging can be accomplished if you could have professional singing stars and talent scouts doing the judging.  But the question will arise, “How can we afford to pay them?”  Forget about trying to buy them off.