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.

Your intrepid reporter attempted to qualify at one of the the semi finals for the “Karaoke Entertainer of the Year Contest“, put on by Star Media last night. The venue was WPLJ’s in Walnut Creek, on Wednesday night, September 30th. The KJ duties were admirably performed by Nan of “Bring Your Own Voice Karaoke“. This particular semifinal was for the R&B/Soul category. This category includes jazz, rap, hip hop, etc.

Considering there were 16 venues and three singers qualified from each venue to advance to the semifinals, there could potentially have been as many as 54 singers at WPLJ’s last night! In fact, only 14 contestants showed up, of which only 13 stayed around long enough to perform. Out of those 13, eight were selected to advance to the finals with two alternates, meaning 10 out of the 13 advanced to the finals in one way or another. Doing a little math, and noting that my name was not announced among the list of those advancing, it seems I was in the bottom three.

The lesson from this is either that I am way, way worse than I thought I was, or that the talent performing at last night’s venue really was that good. To find out for sure, you’d probably have to ask others who were present, but I really do believe that I didn’t stink that badly, and that the rest of the talent really was that good.

And so, while disappointed, I don’t really feel bad, because even being included in a group that talented (and trust me, no one there sucked) was a fairly large honor.

Due to having placed in the top three in a couple of other categories, I have an opportunity to try again, but the reality of it is that even though I’m a fairly decent singer, I’m not sure that I’d have any better chance at any other venue, or in any other genre.

If you’re interested in checking out one of the semi finals, you can find the venue locations for your part of the greater bay area on the contest website. You might want to poke your head in to see what it’s like to hear a bunch of really good singers all in a row, uninterrupted by the usual atonal, arrhythmic, drunk.

Week 3 had quite a turnout of entries. 14 SINGERS competed to move on to the semi-finals. the crowd was huge, featuring lots of new faces.The catagory was my personal favorite,,,,, Oldies. lots of great tunes were belted out. Our 3 from Dallimonti’s to move on were KIMMIE, STEVE AND EDIE. (( No, not the real Steve & Edie )) This week really turned out like I had pictured this contest going.
Nearly a full card of singers ( 16 is the maximum that can compete in 1 night )
A full house….. and tons of fun and drink. Stay tuned, I think it’s just going to get better.

From Dallimonti’s….. our 3 to advance to the semi’s will be   JIM, EDIE, & ANGELIQUE

the R&B semi finals will be held at WPLJ’s on Sept 30th.  I can’t wait to get out to some of these semi-finals to see the talent that is moving forward in the competition. The contest ran much smoother in week 2 , and we’re finding the contestants themselves are very qualified judges.,,,, I wish all of our 6 and the upcoming winners much luck as they advance.   come out and support your friends and fellow karaoke’ers at one of the venues, and especially Dallimonti’s at the end of each qualifying week ( Friday nights )

Week ONE   is in the books………….  in the “top 40″ category

Dallimonti’s, as well as the other East Bay venues, is sending our top 3 to the semi-finals.  Our 3 are Vicky W., Dannielle R.,  and our own Jim M.

Next week  (Week Two) will be in the category of  R&B / Jazz ……….. and every venue will again send 3 more to the semi-finals. There is plenty of time, and various categories, in which to qualify, so get out there; qualify, advance, and try for your share of over $15.000.00 in prize money !!!!

As far as week one, it was very entertaining.  At Dallimonti’s, we only had 6 contestants this first week, but it was quality singing. The really nice part, and very fair, is that the singers themselves do the judging of their fellow competitors. They can award up to 20 points for vocal ability, and up to 30 points for showmanship.  Probably the best judging system I’ve seen in the many contests that I have either seen or participated in.  In most cases, the singing is very very good, and usually rates a pretty high point total.  But…….. this contest is named  “KARAOKE ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR” ……….  AND what that is saying, is ….. they are looking for stage presence, expressiveness, performance, and interaction with the audience.

And as I mentioned above, one may score many more points in the area  of “ENTERTAINER”, than in the karaoke singing itself. So my first tip, as an outside observer, would be ……….. wherever you go to qualify, ask the KJ if he or she has a cordless “MIC”  ,,,,, if they do,  take advantage of that………. grab the mic, move around, and get the crowd involved.  (the better you know the words, the better opportunity to move about, sing TO people, and get them involved … get them behind you and your performance)

So when it comes time for others to judge you,,,,,,, my philosophy is that “good singers” and “good performers” …. KNOW good singing and performing.  and if you have a great performance, it will be acknowledged by your competitors.

So, anyway, it’s exciting and lots of fun. Check out the links for rules and dates and locations, then plan to get out there and get yourself into a semi-finals.
Reminder: if you try to qualify at a venue during the week, and you don’t qualify, you can always come down to Dallimonti’s on FRIDAYS and still have a chance to make it for that week (or that category)    

 
Any questions?   Please leave me a comment.  

 
DRKeno  ( Dennis R )

…starting this week all over the Bay Area.
 

It is called “Karaoke Entertainer of the Year“.

Numerous bars and restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area are hosting qualifying rounds over the next 6 weeks. DALLIMONTI’S in Pleasant Hill will be hosting this Friday (Aug. 21st) at 9pm, as well as the next 5 weeks after. Come down and register……..
good cash prizes………. and while you’re there, get all the info, so you can have a chance to win in 6 different categories
( ie: top 40, country, R & B, etc )
>>>>>>>>
also, there are about 10 venues in the East Bay alone !!

See you there!

 
(Thanks to DrKeno for the reminder and the copy!)

For those of you having a tough time registering in the KaraokeHangouts Forum, the answer to the question, “What is the yellow word in the blue button above?”, if asked on this page would be “Blog”; That’s the yellow word in the blue button above. On any page in the forum, the correct answer would be the corresponding word in yellow above that page.

I hope that helps; if not don’t hesitate to email me, and I’ll be glad to tell you.

To see the latest batch of videos (from the Captain’s Chest – Wed., 7/8/09 and Wed., 1/15/09) using an embedded YouTube player, click here.

Well, maybe again’s not quite the right word; still might be more like it! In any case, first the good news: Videos from last Wednesday at The Captain’s Chest are up over at the Video Page.

Now, the not-so-good news: All the videos from Saturday night at Dallimonti’s were accidentally erased. I’ve got a ton of perfectly good excuses, but the truth is my inexperience and a new camera and impatience combined with the result that an incorrect button was pressed at just exactly the wrong time.

I have since done quite a bit of practicing with the camera and software (thanks to Angelique and Taylor for their fine and patient work as guinea pigs.)

In this batch of eight songs there are three or four that didn’t end up with the player controls under them, so your only choices while watching those are; 1) Watch it through to the end, 2) Reload the page to have it start from the beginning, or 3) Navigate away from the page to make it stop.

Oh, well… I’m just learning this stuff. Any volunteers?

Update:

We’ve added some content under the “Music” tab – namely, Karaoke Videos! Just click on “Music”, then near the top of the page you’ll find a link that says “Click here for videos”. You’ll never guess what you get when you click on that link… no, not videos exactly, but a list of videos. Clicking on the names of the songs will actually get you the videos. Check it out, and if you like the idea of seeing yourself in a music video on this site, just get someone to shoot a video of you (or your favorite singer) and send it to me. Include a short paragraph about the clip; when, where, who, song title, kj… whatever you think folks should know.

Of course, as usual in these circumstances, all submitted videos (or any other content) becomes the property of karaokehangouts.com, and use (or non-use) of said material is entirely at the discretion of the management of Karaoke Hangouts.

I’ve been playing with the idea of posting videos of Karaoke performances. As it turns out, it’s fairly painless, and should be worth doing. Check out the test video I put up a few minutes ago. You can see the possibilities; we can have people submit their performances (in .avi format) and include them in a gallery; something like youTube.

Let me know what you think…