by Janet Harris

Created on: October 03, 2008

If you are mad about playing sport, you join a football team, a hockey team or maybe a swimming club. If you love to paint and draw you can join an art club or art class, and if dancing is your thing then there are numerous places you can go to strut your stuff'. But where do you go if you enjoy singing, and more to the point, where do you go if you enjoy singing in front of other people?

You could join a choir, but supposing you are more comfortable singing by yourself, and you don't want to be too serious about it, you just want to have fun and belt out the songs you enjoy the most. Karaoke is the perfect solution. You get to sing along to proper tracks, with proper musical instruments and it makes you feel like a star.

Karaoke is lots of things all rolled into one, it's a night out, you can drink and eat and there are no strict rules, no disciplines at all. You just have a good time and pretend to be Elvis/Madonna/Michael Jackson/ whoever takes your fancy. If it's a sad song you can ham it up a little, even pretend to cry and no-one will mind. You can sing the wrong notes and no-one will judge you. Karaoke is FUN.

Poor old karaoke gets a bit of a bad press these days. It's one of those pastimes that people love to hate, but it's harmless, you don't get injured, and there are no auditions to pass, you don't have to prove yourself. Just get up there and SING. It's something that everyone is eligible to do, you can be 10, 20 or 90, a good singer or tone-deaf, it really doesn't matter, and the best thing is that the DJ will play your song and then it's the next person's turn, so no-one outstays their welcome and no-one's ears are attacked for too long.

For many years I sang with choirs and amateur theatrical companies, but I soon grew tired of singing the songs that I HAD to sing, because I was in a particular show or concert. Some of the songs I didn't particularly like and sometimes I only sang part of them. Where could I go to sing a whole song, of my choosing and hopefully entertain people at the same time? Enter karaoke. It was sheer bliss to study page after page of songs that I could choose to sing, which suited my voice and which I would never otherwise get the chance to perform in public. I knew I wasn't good enough to front a band, but with karaoke I could sing solo.

Karaoke is the perfect outlet for frustrated singers -the only place you can go to have a good time, listen to others (and there are some very very good singers out there) and try to sing all the songs you always wanted to, but never got the chance. It's contagious too. Even people who are normally shy and would never think of singing in public are temped to get up there and have a go and they CAN if they want to.

For me, these are the reasons why karaoke is so popular and I wonder how we ever managed without it.

Learn more about this author, Janet Harris.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.