Empty orchestra
The Boston Globe has an entertaining (and maybe even in part insightful) article up about kareoke:
Karaoke is above all a space, an absence haunted by the missing vocal line. The instrumental accompaniment, generally a synthetic redaction of the original track, is ghost-music, tinkling with its own deadness -- and that unsung melody is spectrally beckoning, beckoning. The heart of the karaoke performer swells: Into this vacancy he must project his beautiful essence, his soul. He -- or she (karaoke knows no gender) -- may be emboldened or confused by alcohol; wild with a private grief; or, worst of all, suffering from a genuine desire to excel before his peers. Regardless, in the performance that ensues, something will be brought to light.
Karaoke is above all a space, an absence haunted by the missing vocal line. The instrumental accompaniment, generally a synthetic redaction of the original track, is ghost-music, tinkling with its own deadness -- and that unsung melody is spectrally beckoning, beckoning. The heart of the karaoke performer swells: Into this vacancy he must project his beautiful essence, his soul. He -- or she (karaoke knows no gender) -- may be emboldened or confused by alcohol; wild with a private grief; or, worst of all, suffering from a genuine desire to excel before his peers. Regardless, in the performance that ensues, something will be brought to light.
