Real Singing and/vs Karaoke singing
First of all, I must say I have always wanted to learn to sing properly, not karaoke singing, but real vocal using the body as an instrument. However, I have somehow never got around to it, because as with all music instruments, you must practice and this takes time. I am not a music student, I dont have time to do all this extra stuff.
So finally, Covid came, and we are all forced to stay home! Well well well, here is my chance, after I surfed around and watched some singers, and somehow i came across someone singing this song "The Crown", and i thought, this is a gd song to be a sing along song - for my sculpture MobileMusic House. So I checked him out, this v sweet looking young man with a very attractive voice.
So little by little, here we are. For details, I will put the link to the singing experiement here. (Later)
For now, we will focus on the issue of Real singing and Karaoke singing.
Singing profs will tell you, oh, I teach real singing, I dont teach K singing. etc etc.
So during the lockdown, I tried to teach myself singing DIY singing by watching videos and sing as I hear. I didnt know about Karaoke app yet. That came later.
"Beautiful Rose" Kazaks folk song, acapella, Dimash
Real Singing, I started wanting to learn to sing from listening to a real singer, not karaoke singer during Covid lockdown "(Apr 2021 on...). And I was inspired by Dimash who has a v large range as we all know. His melancholic aires are so moving. It is so attractive, you just cant stop listening to him, his voice as if he is speaking to you from his inner self. And of course, what a beautiful face, and that karate kick. :) I wish him - my favorite online teacher even though he does not know it - all the best.
To learn something, the best moment is when you have the drive to learn. Its much much easier when you have a blooming passion that pushes you to do it. Ever since I was a child, its not the work that is difficult but the building up of a passion to do the work. I spent much more time to create the passion necessary to begin the work. Once you have set it up as a fun thing to do - by building making a game around the task - everything else is a lot easier. After you find the fun in the work, everything becomes a lot easier.
For some singers, I could never imagine being able to sing like them, but for Dimash, I could see how it might be possible. Even though you might laugh, here is a giant what makes you think that?
I think that, because I see there could be a clear method to arrive at the end result - but each person has their own voice, sounding like yourself with your own originality, that is something precious. My target is not to sound like Dimash, but to acquire some skills to be able to use my own body as an instrument. Whereas some other singers, for example Sinéad O'Connor , Barry White, singers with very distinctive thematic voices I would never imagine being able to sing like them, not so easy to learn from because its not so orderly in my mind. To learn efficiently, i think its better to have order in our learning, like learning to play an instrument. One group has a methodology, the other is more specifically personal. As a learning example, its much better to learn with the help from a full range "stairway" - going up the mountain for example. We choose something that we love that is close to our own sensibilities. Dimash's voice is a love-lorn love, melancholic whisper, a delicate shimmering inner voice - on top of the traceable solid stairway.
WeSing is an online karaoke app for mobile phones. Its a very powerful social app, you meet friends through singing online, finding out news about other peoples favorite songs, the range is all encompassing. There are 20,000.000.000 songs sung in 2022. (see diagram below) All accessible through online chat, online real time diffusion, messaging, gift gifting, virtual and /or real money exchanged. Very powerful and fun app. Editing your own clip, and at the end of each month, you get a monthly report - generated by a robot of course - and at the end of the year, a year end report with a special cd design of your singing master pieces including graphic! See example of statistics at the end of the blog
I am biased against Karaoke singing. Because, all the sounds markers are pre-mapped out, and points are given for how well you align your voice to the track. That, is not singing, is it?
Its like copying letters on a copy book when you are little child.
However, it does have its pleasure, to follow the lines and see the results. And you do learn to write correctly until you get rid of the copy book and start to scribble your own little hand writing.
What is singing? It is musical sounds made by a person following their inner feelings, it does not have to be technically perfect.
But perfect karaoke singing, is also very useful and gratifying, it is already something. You could learn the text and the song itself. But when it comes to truly singing you need to not remain in the structured networks of the existing underlying musical lines and foot paths.
After I have begun singing before knowing about WeSing, I just sing acapella by myself.
Then, a choir teacher told me, go download WeSing, its got all the lyrics to a lot of songs. It is good.
So I thought, an opera pro teacher tells me this - Karaoke singing - so it cannot be totally bad for you?
So I checked out the WeSing app, and was surprised, found a lot of choir people also on it. But just like in real life, the songs they sing, I dont know and is not easy for me to sing that kind of songs. Songs are related to your growing up years, your general osmosis soundscape from the radio, the tunes from the environment you hear around you. That is why, beyond a certain age, the pop tunes are some other peoples sounds, they are not your own environment anymore. I notice young people like a kind of sluggish, drugged type of singing now a days. Its a style, unlike the previous generations. Every generation has specific sounds and instrumental sounds too.
There was a song sung by our choir leader, and here, we all could see his voice is totally pro, at another level compared to what we normally hear on the Wesing Karaoke singers. A pro voice, is a pro voice. And not only my choir teacher, also other friends who are pro musicians and they also like to sing on Karaoke app, but usually only for a short time.
I found a lot of Dimash songs, usually just the standard version, not the many many various versions he sang during the different performances each with special vocalisations. Still this is very useful, as we could easily listen to the original and have the control sample along with the "k " handrail track.
But I question, would this harm our singing abilities in the long run, due to habits? We end up using a specific muscle memory for specific songs? Hard to undo?
No worries, as I discover,
I think K singing can become boring after a while, for the simple reason that we outgrow it soon enough. We want self expression, not just able to sing along.
I appreciate the inventor of this app, I truly learnt a lot and enjoyed myself many many hours.
