Chinese-forums karaoke competition?

[Hofmann]

No, I'm not drunk. I think a karaoke competition would be a fun way to encourage study, and it would just be fun anyway. What do you think? (I don't know how we could handle a prize though.)

[chrix]

Roddy could give out a prize like a handle that says "Karaoke Master" or something

[taijidan]

There is one run by Cheng & Tsui

http://www.cheng-tsui.com/company/news/cheng_tsui_superstar_chinese_karaoke_contest_now_open

I think they try and run them every year - Chinese one around November and Japanese one in April.

[Hofmann]

Roddy could give out a prize like a handle that says "Karaoke Master" or something

And that is an attractive prize...how?

[imron]

Perhaps you could post the first entry to encourage others. If enough people participate I'm sure something could be arranged.

[Hofmann]

Hah! You thought I forgot about this thread didn't you?? Well, then let me show you a video I've been working on for a while.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTE0FWwVQsU

This video was made for the Cheng & Tsui 2010 Karaoke Contest for Chinese Language Students and Teachers. I lost to this and this. Making this video consisted of many compromises. I'll tell you about them.

First I had to decide which song to use. At first I was thinking of doing 童話, arranging the accompaniment for piano. I was even confident that I could do it better than anyone else on YouTube so far, except maybe 光良. However, on a trip to Taiwan, someone said they liked 王力宏, and I asked her what songs she liked and among those listed was 心跳. At that time I'd forgot how it went, but after she reminded me, I listened to it again and I found the melody more interesting than that of 童話, and I liked the rock-and-roll-in-a-big-stadium kind of feel. Later, I realized that feel was largely due to effects such as nicely timed delay, which I didn't want to do. Looking back, something like 落葉歸根 (arranged for voice and piano, of course) would have been better. Another thing about 童話 is that it might just be too popular, and too old (I wanted something fairly new.) So, 心跳 it was.

The next thing to consider is in which format I would present the music. I was very certain from the beginning that I wanted it to be performable by one normal human, and normal humans can't do much more than sing one vocal part and play one instrument at the same time. Therefore, I chose to make an arrangement for voice and piano. I could have added other instruments and voices like electric guitar, violin, percussion, and backing vocals, all played by myself in a one-man band, but then I'd never be able to perform it live. With the current arrangement, I could perform it wherever there's a piano.

After I transcribed the notes from the original, I was pretty sure I got most of the most important notes that could be played by two hands, but something didn't feel right. At that point, the arrangement didn't sound like something that would be called 心跳. The accompaniment just sounded like a bunch of generic chord changes. The missing element was the percussion. In the original, the percussion is very prominent, and there's a percussion note on every beat or close to every beat. Because the percussion didn't make any distinct pitches, I didn't write any down. Therefore, in order to compensate, I added more notes: bass notes where the bass drum notes were, and right hand chords where the snare drum notes were. After I did that, I was pretty close to done, with only the passages where there is a guitar solo to write. In those parts, transcribing the guitar notes would be stupid. I had to make up some piano solos, which was more difficult than expected. I eventually managed to write something not too stuck up, but not too crude.

With this, I had to consider transposing it. I have observed that most pop songs, when transposed down a major third, are perfect for me. Therefore, if I had transposed this to E-flat major, the vocals would have been better, but also to consider is how weird it would sound. I reckoned that this is a pretty popular song, and many people would have heard it before, and like what they're familiar with. Transposing it would make it sound too weird, especially to those who have absolute pitch. Therefore, to avoid weirding people out, I kept it in the original G major, which produced slightly worse vocals.

At first, I wanted to shoot the video in a room with a Fazioli, as the piano part was recorded on a Fazioli, and I found a few, but one was messier than I liked (other pianos in the background; they charge me to move them) and the other was a recording studio, which I didn't want. I found the current room much better, even though it has a Steinway. Those with discerning ears might be weirded out hearing a Steinway sound like a Fazioli, but those are very few.

Believe it or not, I had second thoughts about completing this video for a second. While I was mixing vocals with piano, I listened to other recordings to get a feel for the right level. I was (un)fortunate enough to pick Amuro Namie's I Will arranged for voice and piano. Of course, I had heard it before, but listening to it carefully on that day, I could not help but sigh. The vocals sounded perfect. Of course, it was written for her and it's easier than 心跳, but compared to that, my vocals sound crude. I wondered what 王力宏 would think if he saw my video. In no way do I think I'm on the same level as him. But then I thought, I'm used to this stuff. Lots of people already hate me for more serious reasons, and lots more will hate me for my other ideas (such as those about educational reform), so I kept going. Also when looking at other music videos for ideas, I saw Otsuka Ai's

. More sighing. She's so beautiful, and there's a nice song she's singing, and it's linked to a nice video, and it's all hers. Pop music in a way isn't popular at all. How many serious performers per pop song? Around 1. How many serious performers per classical work? I bet it's a lot more than 1. Only a few lucky people can have their own music video like her. Meanwhile, the rest of us have to settle with the time and resources we have. It's fine though. I accept the results I got. This isn't my day job and in the end, it doesn't matter at all whether I made a video of the quality of 金魚花火 or a video of someone singing into a webcam.

So............

...does this encourage you to post something? (even though this wasn't karaoke)

[carlo]

Looks like too much hard work. I used to like arranging and recording songs, but it takes time, and equipment, which now I don't have. We could either (1) find someone to volunteer to make some MIDI arrangements of popular songs and have everyone take turns singing, or (2) meet up at the next KTV across the street and take it from there.

[gougou]

No need to make MIDI arrangements; you can actually find the KTV versions of many popular songs on baidu mp3.

[Lu]

I'm all for taking it to the KTV across the street :-)