“He was singing a song for her it felt like a screeching cat!
She was wondering what he was actually getting at!
But she understood it was only the sound which was askew!
The meaning of his words was more important, that she knew!”
This is a billion dollar industry and most famous all over the world and the most popular past time in the country where it was invented!
The literal translation of the word means ”Empty Orchestra!”
So the story goes about Daisuke Inoue who was a drummer in a band that made its money in the 1960s by providing backing music for drunk Japanese businessmen!
One of these customers asked Inoue to play for him during a trip. Inoue was unable to leave his job and instead offered the man a tape of the band’s accompaniment!
One rendition of a Japanese ballad later, and this concept was born!
Unfortunately for Inoue, he failed to capitalize on the idea despite developing 11 more machines and renting them out to bars and clubs. His failure to secure a patent allowed other companies to move in and develop their own variants of the machine!
His biggest contribution was understanding the difficulty amateurs had in singing pop songs, recording his own versions of popular songs in keys that made them easier for casual singers!
As such he also included a rudimentary reverb function to help mask singers’ deficiencies. For these reasons, he is often considered to be the inventor of the modern business model for this past time!
Now, its musical content is an instrumental version of a well-known popular song. In recent times, lyrics are typically displayed on a video screen, along with a moving symbol, changing colour, or music video images, to guide the singer!
Nevertheless this spread throughout Kobe, then, over the course of the Seventies, all of Japan as major manufacturers such as JVC began producing their own versions of the singing machine!
So did you get it!?
Yes! Its Karaoke!
The official patent holder of the karaoke machine is Roberto del Rosario, who is from the Philippines. He developed the karaoke’s sing-along system in 1975 and is recognized as the sole holder of a patent for a karaoke system in the world!
With the advent of apps like Smule and you tube music; Karaoke is a global phenomenon and it does not matter whether you sing well or not! It is a fun time activity and not the Grammy award! Talking about Grammy reminds me of another world famous Grammy winner and today’s birthday celebrity Pundit Ravi Shankar!
Now maybe sing a soft lullaby on Karaoke and sleep!
Shubh Ratri!
ramadocblog 