GK1 (4 Apr 2011) Aftermath: Mental Notes

first glti.ch karaoke went off with lots of glitch. everything that could go “wrong” went “wrong” and as far as i’m concerned, that’s where the magic came in.  original set up in the long corridor of what meanwhile’s jennifer calls the “alice in wonderland” consisted of lots of chairs for an audience set facing a stage for an individual to sing with our japanese friends set against a projection screen backdrop in classic darkened theater karaoke style.  when we skyped in, our friends in kumamoto were already properly in party mode.  for the first fifteen minutes, we kept the original setup but it quickly became clear this didn’t make sense.  they were singing en masse on the big screen and whether in the audience or on stage, everyone in london was also singing.  so we said, screw the setup and let’s have everyone come up front to the webcam and let’s make it one big lovefest.  there were some shifting of chairs, the passing around of nuts and crisps, and by this time, enough beers imbibed in london where the initial shyness that comes on first-karaoking was shed.  and then creep came up in the queue, and it all gelled.  who knew.  daniel and i had anticipated elvis and the beatles to be the hits of the night, not radiohead.  but it seems, slower songs work better with the minimal but nonetheless existent telepresent delay.  curious to pinpoint other songs that work with the glitch.  rounds, duets, and such.  also the original karaoke setup of “request a song, sing your song” was thrown out the window.  perhaps because we have yet to perfect a pipeline with hardware-for-the-home and a two man crew, but no one seemed to mind.  on occasion, requests were called out, and the request was queued up, and this raucous way of doing things worked best.  so karaoke stage style turned into more karaoke private room style–which is more the model in korea (i don’t know of other countries?) than the showcasing that seems to be more the norm in the states and the uk.  sometimes songs came up not everyone felt like singing, but individuals or pairs knew, and so no pressure to always pipe up.  while we could see our japanese compatriots clearly, because of the staging we set up, londoners appeared as platonic cave shadows, until we turned on the lights.  and it was all hellos and nicetomeetyous and ahthereyouares!  a few times, the livestream glitched, but the skype kept on playing.  while daniel and i worked to get the livestream back on, saleem and his crew busted out an acoustic guitar and started singing elvis.  it was amazing.  so note on glitches: have an analog backup plan in place.  not a backup plan per se, because we just expect the drops to happen.  likewise, in the last half hour, something went screwy with the data.  supposedly we used it all up and our internet was entirely cut off and daniel made loads of calls to jess in ireland and the internet companies pretending he was a girl and that was slow-going, but we had an incredibly patient party who knew from the getgo that this might just happen and daniel also then set up his computer that happened to have karaoke vids on his harddrive, and so though the telepresence was lost, the karaoke kept on keeping on.  so number ninety two of lessons learned.  the setup was a bit unnecessarily cumbersome.  put up in a few minutes, take down in a few.  so that setup and cleanup isn’t a big to do and sort of a no-brainer.  would like to figure out a way to just guerrilla glti.ch.  handheld projector that can be used in a bright environment and livestream on a connection fast enough to not go too screwy too readily.  try different models.  big parties are fun, but home settings, less fanfare, more chilled-out, sort of chat roulette without the creepy factor.  interspersed and can build towards larger, more spread out, more ambitious events (the holy grail of a a 24 hour multi-city transnational glti.ch karaoke marathon that makes the un green with envy).  at the same time, if going transnational, more lead time to gather and learn particular songs, transliterate them too, so there are a few j-pop k-pop songs that could be sung by all as well as well-known songs in romanized alphabets.  surprising how time flew.  we planned for 12-3pm, but we didn’t finish until 6ish.  each side needs an mc of sorts who has tinkered and tested at least once prior to, so everyone else can focus on fun; thanks to saleem for being mc in kumamoto this last time.  although now we are doing gk2 next week.  but it’s simply because the opportunity’s presented itself and with the gk, there’s a need to go with the flow and just sing on…

– kyougn