Karaoke

I had a few great karaoke experiences this week. On Saturday night, our crew traveled to Koreatown for the classic room rental and sang and screamed into a microphone to various selections from our cultural history. The background music is cheesy MIDI accompaniment, and the words are superimposed on ridiculous Korean films, but it is still one of the most fun activities I can think of participating in with my friends. There is something very intoxicating (besides the copious alcohol consumption) about belting out a song that you’ve listened to passively hundreds of times. When you are given license to sing, it is easy to get lost in a song and forget that it is a performance; under normal circumstances, singing in a social setting might be considered odd or unappreciated, but inside that karaoke box, it is encouraged. I love this inversion of societal norms! I think music is actually a very natural human expression, but we have become such passive consumers that active participation is reserved only for bands and music classes. I sing every day in my teaching, but I know that my friends do not have this opportunity, so when they are called upon to use their voices, they take full advantage and enjoy it like no other activity that we participate in. Time flies incredibly fast and before we realize, it is 5am (they stayed open later because it was daylight savings time change) and we are paying a $600 bill. And of course, when in Koreatown one must eat Korean BBQ, leading to a 7am return home…
On St. Patrick’s Day, I found myself on stage at Hank’s fronting the Rock Star Karaoke band in a cathartic release singing “Like A Rolling Stone”. Compared to the MIDI of Koreatown, a live band is such a rich experience and these guys do it so well. I have sung with them several times in the past and it is always so fun (“The Joker” and “Sweet Caroline” being two of my favorites). As their name implies, I feel like a rock star with them behind me…
Karaoke is an expression of pure joy. It is a beautiful experience to make music and this Asian phenomenon allows even the least musically inclined to feel the love.