Before karaoke music came in cassettes only but with technological advances they were replaced with CDs, VCDs and DVDs.KTV boxes were set up for people to entertain their friends or just to have fun. KTV means karaoke music video where the lyrics are displayed along with the audio track. It has become quite popular in US, Canada and other Western countries. People love it and it is a good source of entertainment.

Karaoke music popularity:

Karaoke music business has also picked up very fast and now one can find karaoke nights every day in almost every restaurant as it drives people to the place. Small karaoke box have been replaced by hi-fi sound equipments and to make the atmosphere catchier they even put lighting effects and have dance sessions. Now almost all kinds of music are available from rock to pop to hip hop and even religious hymns. The fun part is watching even those timid and shy ones, after consuming alcoholic beverages become bold and march towards the microphone and sing their hearts out ,sometimes even humiliating themselves.

Karaoke Machines:

Computer karaoke is also quite popular among the youngsters. Those who are shy to perform in front of people can now be a star and sing in their own room and also for those who want to improve their skills can also have practice sessions quietly in their room. You can pick karaoke softwares which can provide the means to hear music and also see lyrics on the screen. Quite a number of websites also offer this entertainment for their karaoke fans. All you need to do is download the files, load the song in your computer and you are set to begin.

A simple karaoke box consists of an audio input, an audio output and pitch controller. Some bars also have low end machines where they try to suppress the voice of the original singer so that you can hear only your voice. These machines are cheap. But those high in built machines have a technology that can electronically change the pitch level according to the key the singer chooses for the song.

Next time you step into a karaoke bar do not shy away thinking you will be the laughing stock. People come here to have fun and you will be surprised to see everyone cheering for you. Explore your singing talent! This is a terrific way to wind up your soul and just relax. After a hectic day if you are looking for a place to enjoy and meet new people, this is the place to be. Some karaoke bars also hold karaoke nights, where all wanna be singers show off their talents, if you are one of them, go ahead and show everyone what you have!!

So what do you need? You need a PC with a reasonable amount of processing power under the hood – a Pentium III at least, preferably a P4 – in order to run the music software.

Audio files are quite large – forget MP3s, were talking the real thing here – and for each track of audio you record youll need around 10.6Mb of hard disk space per minute. Every track wont be filled with audio so you wont need quite that much in a multi-track recording but for a four-minute 16-track song it would be wise to allocate around 500Mb of hard disk space.
Playing cards

You need a soundcard. All modern PCs have one of these but if you dont want your song to sound like it was recorded in a back bedroom – even it if was – get a decent card.

At Christmas-stocking prices are a range of SoundBlaster cards such as the Audigy 2 ZS (for under Ј70/$100) with a good set of built-in sounds. But more than that, they support SoundFonts. These are samples the card uses to produce realistic instrument sounds and better beefy bass lines than yer average sound card.

If youve a rich Mummy and Daddy they’ll be pleased to buy you a more expensive card such as E-Mu’s Emulator X (around Ј220/$380), a desktop sampling system that also supports SoundFonts. If you own a nightclub youll be able to afford one of CreamWares high-end systems with on-board synthesisers that can do everything but sober up the drummer – not that you need a drummer cause the cards have all the drum sounds you need.

Key move

Youll also need a MIDI keyboard to record your masterpiece. There’s a vast choice here from E-Mu’s XBoard 25, XBoard 49, and Swissonic’s CK490 (all running around Ј100/$150 give or take) to the Fatar range running from the TMK61 (Ј130/$225) up to the VMK 188 Plus (Ј599/$1000) with several models inbeween.

These keyboards dont have any on-board sounds like synthesisers but theyre much cheaper than synths and there are sounds in the soundcard anyway. If youve seen an Elton John concert and cant face the thought of touching a keyboard, dont worry – you can use pre-recorded loops and samples and cleverly arrange them in stunning combinations without a keyboard.

Listen ere

A decent pair of speakers is essential. The ten quid jobbies that were bundled with your PC may be fine for playing MP3s but they simply wont do for mixing music.

The Big Boys use dedicated monitor speakers which can cost as much as a holiday in Barbados but if you leave the other half at home you could easily afford Behringer’s MS16s (Ј46/$79), or Edirol’s MA7A (Ј80/$135) or MA150 (Ј120/$200).

If your PC is near your hi fi you can run the audio through that but switch off any bass boost or EQ settings. The idea is to get a flat, uncoloured response so if it sounds good on those speakers it should sounds good on any speakers. So the theory goes.

Good arrangement

The Big Boys can fiddle with high-end music sequencers but the new and incredibly modestly-priced Cubase SE 3 (less than a ton/$170) lets you record and assemble audio and MIDI parts with almost as much aplomb. It shows both types of recording on the same arrange page making it easy to see how they fit together.

And finally, you need a CD recorder so you can burn your finished hit to CD and send it to lucky record companies. If you’ve a modern PC you’ll have one already. But do use a labeller and create a CD inlay, too, to give the CD a pro finish. In the music biz, looks, fashion and style are far more important than content so spend at least as much time on the outside as on the music. Put your contact details on the CD label as well as the inlay.

Hook and line

Now lets make a song. You need a hook. This is the bit everyone sings so it has to be catchy. Its usually the chorus but you can have a catchy bass line, drum line or even a vocal hook such as shout or a catch phrase like Eh Oh. Well it worked for the Teletubbies – are you old enough to remember them with embarrassment?

Lets say youve come up with a stonking chorus. Build a verse around it. It doesnt have to be memorable; few verses are. You can meander around in a relatively tuneless way until its time to unleash the chorus on the world.

When building a song, start with the rhythm section. Grab some groovy drum loops, string them together then add the bass line. You can play this on your new MIDI keyboard or drop in bass samples – jolly useful things, samples.

Next youll want to add some keyboard parts which can be clever rhythmic figures or you can play pads by holding down some chords using a broad-texture sound such as strings.

Very vocal

Then add the vocals. If you cant sing – but remember that never stopped anyone making a record – you might like to nip down the pub and ask the winner of this weeks karaoke contest to do the chanting for you. Play your cards right and they may even pay you for the privilege.

If youve too much musical nous to be in the same room as a karaoke singer, you can always fall back on your old friend, the sample.

The final step is the mixing. This is where you balance all the parts you recorded, add a dash of reverb and generally tart the thing up.

Then save the entire song as an audio file ready for burning to CD. This means recording the MIDI parts as audio tracks. You need to mix all the tracks into one stereo track so the final file will be 10.6Mb x the length in minutes.

Looks good

Now you have to interest the A&R men in your CD. Its all about image so if youre dull and ugly – name three ugly pop stars, apart from Madonna and Mick Hucknall – you may have to get one of your beautiful friends to pose for the publicity photos.

Write a one-page biog – they dont want to know that you have a GCSE in music, they want to know what gigs youve done and any Big Name bands you’ve supported. Drop a few names such as Bruce, Robbie and Tina. You dont have to mention surnames…
If you do catch the ear of an A&R person, be prepared to throw your ego out the window – you cant afford one at the moment and when youre rich and famous you can buy a much better one anyway.

Youll see the months of blood, sweat and Pils which you poured into your song pouring straight down the drain as the record company drafts in a 14-year-old DJ to remix your song using the latest Dance breakbeats and crap – sorry, rap – vocals.

But dont worry – you can laugh all the way to the bank when it reaches Number One!

With so many download services on the internet today, most companies still ignore the issue of lyrics as most uses would like to have the music with the lyrics. So how do you get your lyrics onto your mp3 player?

Just as there are many lyrics sites, there is today a huge variety of shareware developers who have created plugins for most of the devices on the market. Now you can import the lyrics into your IPod or MP3 player for most music bought on the internet. A good example is the iTunes tracker software that which connects online to retrieve your lyrics. The software not only allows you to organize the lyrics but also to save, edit and store them.

The software is very simple when reading lyrics. The progams are similiar to to the first version on Windows Player where it would read the file to extract the name of the song and the artist. What most of these software packages does is merely to connect to the internet after completing the same process and downloading the lyrics for the song that it had identified. The technology for find lyrics is not new.

Now that you have the song, what do you do with it. Most of the lyric software allows you to tag or mark the lyrics so that each time the music was played it would display the lyrics on your screen. The software varies and each is different. Some will not store the lyrics for you on a long term bases and you need to download the lyrics each time you listen tot he song. Others keep the lyrics for you on your player so each time you play it the lyrics would be displayed. Very few of these however allow you to print the lyrics when done. So they do limit the use of lyrics on your mp3 player. The shareware market is filled with lyrics readers, but most of them have very limited features as they require you to but the full version or proffessional edition of the software to make use of all the features.

Lyrics can be download or view online for most applications. Happy singing!

He recorded only 36 sides over a period of a couple of months between November 1936 and June 1937 in San Antonio Texas .These remarkable recordings still bring tears to the eyes of Blues aficionados the world over and shaped the face of the music of today.

The post-war Blues of Chicago owe a great debt to Robert Johnson and it is sad to think what might have been had he lived! In just a few short years he matured from a young black guitarist into a superstar of his day .The often repeated legend was perpetuated by his contemporaries that he sold his soul to the Devil in return for his amazing guitar techniques.

His story is one of hardship tinged with great success in his own locality of the Delta and women were said to be rendered helpless as he sang his compositions. His death at the hand of a jealous husband at the age of twenty seven robbed the world of one of Americas finest ever Musicians and Blues artists.

Years after his death in 1938, a photograph was unearthed, one of only two in existence. It shows not only his inimitable style of dress but quite remarkable slender fingers which helped him to achieve his unique mastery of the bottleneck guitar technique. He is pictured in a chalk–stripe suit which would have been somewhat overstated for a man in his position at that time .When I first saw that photograph the one thing above all else, that stood out were his beautiful long fingers that enveloped the guitar fingerboard and obviously caressed it as though it was a Woman helpless in his arms!

What about his subject matter… well nothing much has changed in the passing of time; the age old, painful process of unrequited love; of restless yearnings to move on down the line to pastures new; to unfaithful liaisons; and of course much sexual innuendo .

Robert Johnson’s skill as a poet of the time and place is absolutely unsurpassed in my estimation! For sure he borrowed words, phrases, and guitar licks from his peers, but moulded them into something quite unique that not only stands the test of time but has a relevance to today’s Rock music.

There cannot be any Blues Band on this Planet that has not been influenced by Johnson and his music and this is a testament to the greatness of the man! The list of recordings of Johnson’s songs by modern artists is endless and forms the backbone of the resurgence of the Blues in the early sixties in Britain and continues to this day! Most of the long lasting Bands of the R,n,B revolution of 62, 63, and on into the seventies have recorded several of Roberts songs. Notable amongst these would be The Rolling Stones, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, Cream, The Allman Brothers Band, Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, Elmore James, and many more. Johnson’s songs transcribed particularly well to the new Electric guitar line-ups of the fifties and on into the sixties. Probably one of the most popular of his songs, which I can’t imagine anyone not having heard in a modern format, is of course Crossroad Blues.

This song was recorded live at the Fillmore in San Francisco in 1968 by the great Eric Clapton and his two buddies, Jack Bruce on bass and stickman, Ginger Baker .This song also featured in Cream’s farewell concert at the Albert Hall in London in 1969. I doubt whether Johnson envisaged this treatment of his song when he wrote it or that his poetry would one day be the cornerstone of the Blues Revival of the Sixties.

It is a poignant end to his story that the great impresario John Hammond, who later went onto sign –up a young Bob Dylan in 1962, was just too late when he searched for Robert to appear in the momentous concert at Carnegie Hall in 1938. Robert Johnson was dead but his spirit and his music will live on for ever in the hearts and minds of the lovers of the music we call THE BLUES .

© Robin Piggott 2004 Key to the Highway Publications.