Killing karaoke

They’re everywhere. In department stores, you can’t miss them — they’re at every entrance (and in the music section, the bookstore, the hardware store, even the grocery store!). No party is complete without them. During drinking sessions, people get into melees over their use, or misuse. Seems like all families own portable versions of this entertaining gadget. Heck, even celebrities endorse them, like Sarah, Regine and Manny, you know?

You probably know what I’m talking about by now. The humble karaoke machine has certainly risen from being a simple form of entertainment to being a national pastime, a notable part of our pop culture, and even an aid to our country’s tourism.

It’s no surprise that the karaoke or videoke machine is so popular. For one, Filipinos love to sing (that doesn’t necessarily mean we can sing well). When Pinoys go abroad, many foreigners ask them to sing, mistakenly believing that all of us are in the caliber of Charisse or Arnel Pineda or Allan Pineda (a.k.a. Apl.De.Ap of The Black Eyed Peas), or Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger (who’s half-Pinay, I heard).

Secondly, Filipinos are competitive. There will never be a competition better or more popular than a singing one. For most folks, the karaoke, which grades “performances,” is the closest they’ll ever get to joining Pinoy Idol, Little Big Star, or some other similar contest.

Third and last, karaoke was born in the Philippines. The first of these great music boxes was developed by a Filipino inventor. In 1975, Roberto del Rosario created the Sing-Along-System which is the ancient ancestor of modern magic microphones and portable sing-along machines. I wonder if he ever got any royalty or international recognition for his wonderful invention.

 All over the world, our nationwide passion for karaoke is famous, even legendary. Or should I say, infamous? News agencies from abroad often feature reports on drunken Filipinos getting into brawls because someone commented negatively on another person’s videoke performance.

We’ve all heard of people killing each other because they insist that their way of singing Sinatra’s My Way is the best way. It sounds like a joke but, ironically, some of these stories are true. In 2007, a security guard in a KTV bar in Rizal criticized a patron for singing out of tune. An argument ensued, and he ended up shooting the customer in the chest and killing him.

Learning about this incident is a warning for me to never sing in public. I’ll probably get shot before I even finish belting out the first verse of a song. It’s important to note, though, that sometimes it’s not being sintonado (out of tune) that riles people, but the volume of singing. Incidentally, I noticed that the louder one sings, the higher the videoke score.

In Thailand, a man killed eight people who were having a sing-along party next door. He shot them after they ignored his warnings to stop or at least tone down their noisy karaoke parties.

You don’t need to look far to find people who are sick and tired of noisy neighbors singing from happy hour all the way into the ungodly hours of early morning.

Our neighbors can wake the dead (and certainly keep us from falling dead asleep) with their occasional screeching, er, singing festivities We live in the suburbs now; think how bad it was when we were in the heart of Manila, where you can practically eavesdrop on the normal conversation of your neighbor. Now, when I do get to sleep on those nights of community merrymaking, maybe I do dream of killing them, but I never set out to fulfill my dreams, of course.

Online forums are continually flooded with similar grievances. Very few comments mention the quality of singing; only the loudness and length of these musical bashes (the word charivari comes to mind) are emphasized. Many of those who join these forums ask, “What can I do?”

The most common reply is to go to the barangay captain to file a formal complaint. There are laws that punish people who disturb the peace and produce noise pollution. One such law, the Anti-Noise Pollution Act of 2004, has yet to be passed in Congress. (It has been dubbed the Karaoke Law by some forum members.) 

Since the laws we need to control our noise levels are not enforced or are still pending approval, other sectors of society have made suggestions as to how each citizen can help make their areas quieter and more peaceful.

The League for the Hard of Hearing (LHH), an organization based in New York, released a “Quiet Diet,” which outlines what Filipinos should do in order to join the campaign against noise. Part of this diet states that noisy sports and activities must be avoided and replaced with quiet ones, such as playing chess or visiting libraries and museums.

While I agree that noise in our country should be minimized, I don’t think it is right (or possible, for that matter) to snatch that Magic Sing! from your neighbor’s hand and instead give him a chess set for entertainment. To do that is like trying to stop airplanes from taking off or landing in populated areas because of the ear-splitting noise they create, or telling construction workers to stop tearing up the road with their jackhammers.

These things — airplanes, street repairs, and karaoke — are indispensable. We need airplanes to reach faraway lands in hours instead of days or months. We need better roads to get to work faster and in comfort. And, we also need to sing using our trusty karaoke or videoke machines to get our minds off our troubles. Admit it, there’s no better cure for stress, heartbreak, or anger than singing “Turn around,” in response to Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart, before exploding into “EVERY NOW AND THEN I FALL APART!”

Okay, you can stop singing now.

A better solution for this deafening problem would be to let your neighbors howl all they want — up to a certain hour. Some residential areas have cutoff times for not-so-private singing. Public places should also have cutoffs so that party people are not deprived of enjoying a few hours of imitating Celine Dion and Whitney Houston, and nearby folks are not deprived of sleep either. Where these cutoffs exist, only enforcement needs to be improved. The ultimate solution is just spend a few hours with friends or family in one of those KTV bars that in recent years have sprouted all over the nation.

Hopefully, if and when the Anti-Noise Pollution Act of (no-longer) 2004 is passed, none of us will have to surrender our videoke machines and microphones or our sleeping hours. For now, praying for cutoff times to be implemented and upheld is all we can do. Until people can learn to be disciplined enough to follow these regulations and laws, we’ll just have to remember that, on some nights, we are the ones to keep our buddies next door awake with our incessant and out-of-tune wailing. Revenge can be so sweet, sweeter than getting a perfect score for your rendition of Total Eclipse of the Heart (bwah hah hah!).