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Karaoke (カラオケ 空 kara, "empty" or "void", and オーケストラ ōkesutora, "orchestra") is 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.
Karaoke has been a popular form of entertainment beginning first in Japan, then the rest of East and Southeast Asia, since at least the 1980s, and has since spread to other parts of the world.
A basic karaoke machine consists of audio input, a means of altering the pitch of the music (not the singer) and an audio output. Some low-end machines attempt to provide vocal suppression so that one can feed regular songs into the machine and suppress the voice of the original singer, however this is not very effective (see below). Most common machines are audio mixers with microphone input built-in with CD+G, Video CD, Laser Disc, or DVD players. CD+G players use a special track called subcode to encode the lyrics and pictures displayed on the screen, while the other formats natively display both audio and video. In some countries, karaoke with video lyrics display capabilities is called KTV.
The first real revolution with the technology came with the development of home karaoke sets which meant that you could sing at home whenever you wanted. You can buy karaoke tapes with books to try at home even if you don't have a karaoke set and, one advantage of them is that they often have one side with the music only and one with music and vocals so that you can learn new songs. |
