Karaoke (Kah-rah-oh-kay) Somebody Really Invented it - by Boye Lafayette De Mente
Karaoke (kah-rah-oh-kay) has been one of Japan's most successful exports. How it was invented, and why it became so successful, first in Japan and then internationally, is an amazing story!
Tokyo, (PRWEB) April 20, 2005 -- Most people who have sung and heard karaoke
probably believe it was something that grew of its own accord, like crab grass!
But that is not the case. It was invented…by a guy who could not possible have
dreamed that it would spread around the world like some kind of Asian
flu.
Singing in Japan goes back to ancient times, when it became an
integral part of Japanese culture. It began with shamans and priests chanting
their ritual prayers to the gods
Then fishermen, boatmen, carpenters,
geisha, samurai warriors, shoguns, cooks, you name it, got into the act.
Everybody sang, in groups and individually, to enhance work camaraderie, for
self-gratification, as well as to entertain others.
Virtually every category of personal and public activity had its own
collection of songs. The practice of singing became such an important part of
Japanese culture that it survived into modern times.
Still today, singing
is a significant part of the business and social life of the Japanese. It is
perfectly common for reserved, elderly businessmen and politicians to burst out
in song at public events—something that generally surprises—and invokes
envy—from their Western counterparts.
And it was because of this
imperative that everyone sing—for both business and pleasure and to relieve
stress and bond with co-workers and new friends—that Daisuke Inoue invented
karaoke.
In 1970 Daisuke Inoue was a club musician who earned his keep by
playing sing-along tunes in cabarets in Kobe, Japan. It was painfully obvious to
Daisuke that many of his businessmen “customers” had been so consumed by work
that unlike other Japanese they had never had time to polish their singing
skills.
This prompted Daisuke to tape a number of the more popular tunes
(like Frank Sinatra’s “I Did It My Way!”), changing the pitches to suit off-key
singers, and making it possible for the cabaret customers to sing along with the
taped tunes and not sound like screeching banshees.
Over the next several
months, Daisuke integrated the “singer friendly” tunes into a tape recorder that
became the first karaoke (kah-rah-oh-kay) machine that played only
accompaniments. Kara (kah-rah) means empty and oke (oh-kay) is the Japanese
abbreviation of orchestra. In other words, “empty orchestra.”
In 1971
Daisuke made 12 karaoke machines and leased them to bars in Kobe. And as the
saying goes, the rest is history…but not the kind of history most inventors
dream of.
Following the incredible success of his first karaoke machines,
Daisuke’s intuition and ingenuity failed him. He didn’t patent the new device,
and before you could say Dohshimashita ka? (doh-she-mah-ssh-tah kah?)—which you
might translate as “What the Hell happened!”—a whole stream of karaoke machines
poured into Japan’s huge number of bars and
cabarets.
The new device was so popular that
thousands of new “karaoke bars” were opened to take advantage of it. Hotels and
other public buildings in the country opened “karaoke rooms” for their guests
and employees.
Major manufacturers got into the
act, using the latest technology to continuously upgrade the quality of karaoke
machines. By the late 1980s karaoke had spread around the world, and went on to
become one of Japan’s most popular exports.
In 1999 Time magazine named
Daisuke Inoue one of the 20 most influential Asians of the Century, along with
China’s Mao Tse-tung and India’s Gandhi. I don’t remember the Time piece, but
naming the inventor of the karaoke machine in the company of such luminaries was
surely not a tongue-in-cheek thing.
In 2004 Harvard University students
awarded Daiskuke one of their annual Ig Nobel Prizes for contributing to world
piece though his invention…the Ig being short for ignoble, and the annual Ig
Nobel Prize is a parody of the real Nobel Prize.
Daisuke was invited to
Harvard to receive the award in person, and sang a song before an appreciative
audience. He was awarded the Ig Noble Prize for Peace for the contributions his
invention made to world harmony.
This belated
recognition is all that Daisuke’s gets from his innovative invention. He could
not compete with the big companies that jumped into manufacturing and marketing
karaoke machines. His business failed. He now lives in Nishinomiya, just outside
of Kobe, and sells rat repellant devices.
Some
of the millions of people around the world who have had their peace and quiet
disturbed by home karaoke singing may wish that Daisuke had come up with his rat
repellant business first.
Boyé Lafayette De Mente is the author of more
than 30 pioneer and provocative books on Japan, ranging from Japanese Etiquette
& Ethics in Business and Japanese Secrets of Graceful Living to
Mistress-Keeping in Japan. See his personal website
phoenixbookspublishers.com.
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/4/prweb230478.htm