By Shelley Emling, Cox News Service, DenverPost.com, 30 May 2006
London - Karaoke bars have become trendy around the world, with countless wannabe singers mangling songs like Frank Sinatra's "My Way" while following along with lyrics displayed on a big screen.
So why not karaoke churches? With attendance plummeting and youthful organists hard to find, churches across Britain are turning to a new karaoke-like machine called Hymnal Plus as a means of jazzing up stale services - and also giving elderly organists a break.
Designed and manufactured in Britain, the new Hymnal Plus, or HT-300, from Hymn Technology Ltd. of London promises to take music accompaniment for worship to a whole new level.
Priced at $3,500, the HT-300 not only can play more than 2,750 traditional hymns and modern worship songs, but can also play imported MP3 audio files.
Besides featuring traditional tunes, the machine can blast a disco version of "Amazing Grace" and a jazzy variant of "The Lord's My Shepherd." The machine will play any song in a variety of styles, speeds, and keys, depending on the enthusiasm of the congregation. Users can choose from among 200 preset sound styles ranging from brass band to jazz piano.
It also is able to display words on a screen for those churches short of hymn books.
"This is not designed to replace real organists, but to help churches where there just aren't enough organists," said Alan Kempster, a director at Hymn Technology. "We want to keep hymn singing alive because it's always been a very important part of the church service.
"These machines will also help churches move with the times as they allow churches to select accompaniments to a lot of the new tunes," he said.
Smaller than a laptop, the HT-300 is designed to be portable and self-contained so that it can stand in at funerals, weddings, choir rehearsals, and graveside services whenever an organist or other types of music are unavailable.
One of Hymn Technology's newest customers is the 15th-century St. Mary the Virgin Church in Mudford, England, which used the HT-300 recently at its services in order to give its organist a rare rest.
"Our organist is elderly, and so if she's feeling poorly it's nice to have this new box of tricks to do the music," said Bill Watkins, a church warden and now "hymn DJ." "It will never replace an organist but it's certainly better than nothing."
"It's great, because you can program a play list before the service begins," Watkins said. In addition, he said, he can change a song's pitch if parishioners can't hit the high notes.
"The members liked the machine, and their only complaint was that the hymns were taken at a cracking pace. Most of our members are elderly people, so I am going to have to slow the tempo down by about 5 percent." Kempster said the company has sold about 100 units in the past six months.
In the U.S., Tom Moulin, owner of Moulin Mills Music in Knox, Pa., has been selected as the product's main distributor. The company is still awaiting machines.
"We've had numerous inquiries a day wanting to receive the informational packet and CD, and also wanting to place an order," Moulin said. "I really do believe these machines will sell themselves."
Although many believe the Hymnal Plus to be the answer to every church's prayers, some worry it might eventually put organists out of business.
Kempster insists the machines will act as a supplement and not as a replacement.
Even so, clergy might be forewarned: Among the Hymnal Plus' many talents is the ability to lead a congregation in prayer and pre-recorded sermons via an electronic voice box.
Magic Sing downunder.
It's a plug'n'play or I should say plug'n'sing karaoke microphone.
Ultra-lite, but loaded with thousands of songs, this is a go anywhere karaoke as long as you have a TV set availabe, PAL or NTSC, it does not matter at all. Your family can even use it on your car by plugging through the cigarette lighter and tune in to your FM radio band.
It has been a craze item in some Asian countries, has spread it's popularity in the U S A and now found its way in the Austland downunder. Filipinos, yes, Filipinos was the first and foremost patroniser of this karaoke system.
A sleek, modern design manufactured in Korea and guest who created its evolution and existence in the market this far? Yes, those Filipinos again. I will not even contemplate its presence, in the form of its first-time invented cousin by a Japanese taking a stature of a stand-alone stereo like box, as having emerged without the influence of those Filipino workers there a few decades ago. Filipinos seem to have one Magic Sing in their possession wherever they go.
Karaoke on Your Mobile Phone? Hmmm... read on...
Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store registered its 100 millionth MP3 download last month--not bad for a business that, two years ago, the music industry was convinced would spell its imminent doom.
Indeed, the success of iTunes indicates pretty strongly that there is in fact a paying market for music downloads--and that's just in the US. In another promising sign, the European version of iTunes--which made its debut in Britain, France and Germany in June--sold over 800,000 tracks in its first week.
Now that the business model has legs, the next big move seems to be migrating this to the mobile telecoms space. Mobile operators are already on the case. Cellcos like NTT DoCoMo, mmo2 and T-Mobile have already launched music download services, while others like SingTel Mobile and KDDI have similar services in the works.
It's not hard to see why cellcos want in on the music download scene. We've known music could be mobile since Sony invented the Walkman. And for all the hype over video being the big play for 3G, it doesn't translate nearly as well into a portable handheld format as music. We also know now that mobile users will pay for music-based content like ringtones, music video clips and even karaoke.
However, mobile's suitability for music content doesn't automatically guarantee success. DoCoMo has already learned this the hard way--its mobile download service will reported[y be discontinued later this year. The reason: it's just too expensive, especially in a market like Japan where music fans can rent entire CDs for a few hundred yen.
That's a market-specific business model issue, perhaps, but it illustrates the point that mobile music, like rock'n'roll, ain't easy--and not just because of the business side. Mobile music still faces a number of technical issues as well that are going to have to be dealt with before it reaches its potential.
Call that an iPod?
Digital rights management, of course, is at the top of the list--indeed, it's the chief issue that has caused the music industry to resist downloads in the first place. Ironically, thanks to the Open Mobile Alliance's work on developing a DRM standard--now in its second version--DRM at this stage is probably the least of mobile music's technical hurdles.
A potentially bigger issue is link speeds. Downloading a 3MB MP3 file is fine for Wi-Fi--anything else is going to be miserably slow and measured in minutes, especially if it's GPRS or Ix. Solutions vary--mmO2's solution was to enable users to listen to the track while it downloads. T-Mobile's solution, embarrassingly, was to offer 90-second song clips rather than full tracks.
Cellcos might do better to develop other ways to help users get music onto their phones. For example, multimedia kiosks in Hong Kong sell ringtones and music files that can be downloaded either direct to your device via a USB cable, or to various storage devices, including CompactFlash, MMC, Memory Stick, and SD Card. Bluetooth can't be far behind.
Another issue is the device itself. Sorry, but as music players go, today's mobile phones can't hold a candle to the iPod. They don't have the storage capability or the battery life. New-fangled handsets like Motorola's E398--which features an integrated MP3 player, vibrating stereo speakers, and rhythmic flashing lights--are brave efforts to change that. But for my money, it makes more sense to stick a Centrino chip in an MP3 player.
As usual, such issues are temporary. Storage and battery issues, for example, could be solved via removable flash memory and fuel cells. Until then, however, cellcos hoping to cash in on mobile music should think outside the box, because there's likely going to be more to mobile music than just download services. The possibilities range from uploading services for local music artists and distributors to nifty value-added ideas like IVR-based music recognition systems (hear a tune in a restaurant and want to know what it is? Dial a number, hold your phone up to the source and receive an SMS with details about the song and the artist) to barcodes in music magazine articles, adverts, or concert posters that can be scanned with camera-phones to access info on the artist and buy CDs and concert tickets.
Source: Telecom Asia, August, 2004 by John C. Tanner.
How did karaoke evolve?
The word
karaoke as found in Wikipedia is shown as
(Japanese: カラオケ, from 空 kara, "empty" or "void", and オーケストラ ōkesutora, "orchestra") a form of entertainment in which an amateur singer or singers sing along with recorded music on microphone. The music is typically of a well-known song in which the voice of the original singer is absent or reduced in volume. Lyrics are usually also displayed, sometimes including color changes synchronized with the music, on music video to guide the sing-along.
Karaoke has been a popular form of entertainment beginning first in Japan, then the rest of East Asia, since at least the 1980s, and has since spread to other parts of the world. Karaoke engenders quite a bit of culture specific to its enthusiasts, and this culture, unsurprisingly, varies from country to country. Much of the information in this entry is currently specific to karaoke's area of origin in the Far East.
In my opinion, karaoke has flourished well before the 1980s, perhaps in the late 1960s or early 1970s. Having been from a SE Asian region, the Philippines, the trend of a 'minus one' music had already been in existence since then. This activity was inspired by the traditional "serenade" practices of the Spaniards adopted by the romantic suitors of the past era in the country. This music had been in the form of taped music, usually saved in two ways, one with vocal and the other without. Lyrics were printed on separate piece of paper sold with the tape. The 'without' vocal taped music would have been the pre-existence of the word 'karaoke' that I would say was associated with some type of music hardware as in a visual TV screen where the actual song lyrics appeared. This known existence of such hardware (screen with visual lyrics) and music format (stored on tape or in another format but in another hardware) would have been the origin of the word 'karaoke'. I can conclude then that 'karaoke' would, as a whole, imply a specific form or type of music and the type of hardware in use associated with the live rendition of the vocal sound.
Having said that, 'karaoke' could be seen as a variation of a past-time activity of a group of people (if not, but seldom, by an individual only) where the vocal rendition would normally be intended for enjoyment or entertainment of those around.
Moms Are Women First
By Renee Michaels
Do a special presentation, what about serenading her with a karaoke tune and handing her your own bouquet of flowers? Let her know that you still care about ...
