Karaoke Pusher

I love Karaoke. And it’s not because I’m some great singer. I just love to sing. And when it’s done in the privacy of your home in front of the people who know you best, it’s not as scary as you might think.

This Friday we are having our second Decade Karaoke Party. Not everyone likes Karaoke. At least that’s what non-Filipinos claim. So I often have to encourage people to sing by having them take baby steps. Baby steps work for anything that you’re trying to summon the courage to do, by the way.

Everyone has an inner rock star: the person who sings in the shower, or into a hairbrush, or without his pants on sliding through the living room in his socks singing Old Time Rock ‘n’ Roll. There’s a reason Tom Cruise’s performance is one of the most famous cinematic scenes of all time. Who hasn’t wanted to give a performance like that?

One of my missions in life is to help people let their inner rock start come out and sing, gosh darn it! Because I know they want to and I like to help people do what they want to do. Even when they don’t know they want to do it. I would have been a great drug dealer or salesperson. In fact, Amazon should be paying me commission for the number of red light therapy panels I’ve sold–even to physicians! Fortunately, I choose to use my powers of influence for good instead of evil.

Here’s how I get people to sing:

• I start off the party with a hard song and sing it badly.  Not on purpose. I’m really just not that good. Especially if I haven’t warmed up. And if you warm up, this really discourages people from singing karaoke, since you seem all professional about it.
• I ask them what kind of song they would sing if they were to sing, or to just name a song they like. Now that you can find Karaoke songs on YouTube, it is very rare that your song is not going to be on there.
• I suggest that we play the song, just to see what it sounds like.
• I volunteer to sing it for them.
• I have 2 microphones, so I coax them into holding the other mic, or at least touch it, just to see how it feels. Because it feels way better than a hairbrush. It’s heavier and more substantial. They don’t even have to have it anywhere near their face if they don’t want to.
• I suggest that the whole group sing, because we’re a Filipino family, we usually have six microphones. That’s how hard core we are about Karaoke.
• I tell the person to hold the mic far away from their mouth and sing quietly, if they’d like to. No pressure. We’e happy to sing for them.
• I ask them what song they want to sing next, because now they’re hooked.

By the next Karaoke party, they’re usually singing solos. In fact, one person secretly bought a Karaoke machine and hid it so his wife wouldn’t know that he had become a closet Karaoke singer. But she eventually found it and they had a good laugh about it. He hosted the next Decade Karaoke Party.

If I could, I would have a Karaoke machine in my office and I would use singing as a therapy technique.  Kind of like what Tracy Ullman did as Ally’s therapist on Ally McBeal. She made Ally choose a theme song. Personally, I think it’s more important to sing in front of someone. There has to be some risk involved. Some skin in the game. It’s freeing to know that you can enjoy doing something without worrying about being good at it or looking foolish. You can just be in the moment and enjoy the act of singing. And dancing, if you’re really into it. You don’t even have to wear pants if you don’t want to.

That’s the reason that one of the workshops in the Normal in Training: Rest and Play Conference will be karaoke. I will have people there who can ask the person to pick the song, people who are willing to sing it for them, and I’ll have an extra mic in case the person wants to hold it and maybe sing a little bit too, albeit quietly. And then we’re going to praise the heck out of them for being so brave and how great it was to hear them sing. And then I’ll send them a link to an inexpensive Karaoke machine if they’re thinking about buying one. You can get them for as low as $25 by the way. I got my niece a mini one for Christmas for her dorm room.

Once you let go of those fears, anything is possible. In singing and in life.