BACA's 2012 Cabaret Fest a Smashing Success

30 Performers Deliver 3 Days of Cabaret Concerts to Enthusiastic Audiences

by Robin Burrage

The stage, the audience, and the sounds of voice and music permeating the air are just three elements of the magic that transpired during CabaretFest 2012.

This year, BACA's annual Cabaret Fest set the stage for a host of BACA members to share a world of cabaret rife with their immense talents, with a wonderfully enthusiastic audience. Solo performances, duets, jazz, Broadway, standards, pop, inspirational songs, Brazilian vocals, Irish tunes, original compositions, humor, and storytelling comprised the five mini cabaret shows in Medford’s glorious Hawkins Hall at Springstep in Medford.

Fest participants from varied backgrounds — professionals, aspiring professionals and songwriters — and from as far away as Cape Cod and Worcester — sang and played their hearts out for the sheer joy of the art of cabaret and to celebrate BACA's mission to actively support participation in and around cabaret performances and music.

We asked both performers and non-performers to share with us their own personal CabaretFest inspirations, and here’s what they had to say:

With this kind of positive feedback, how can we do anything but dive in and ramp up for CabaretFest 2013?

Karaoke for Cabaret

Practice Makes Perfect

by Robin Burrage and Matt BenDaniel

If you have ever sung at a Karaoke bar, you know how much fun an evening of singing your favorite songs can be. But do you know about the benefits of using online Karaoke tracks? BACA board member and cabaret performer Matt BenDaniel knows all about this innovative technology that is both fun and useful for novice hobbyists and experienced cabaret performers alike. This article covers how Online Karaoke can be very helpful to cabaret artists, and how using Online Karaoke is much easier than cobbling together similar functionality on your own.

Online Karaoke (OK) provides a quick and easy way to practice and record thousands of the well-known standards we all love, as well as original compositions. Because the technology resides on the web, reaching audiences who may not be able to attend your performances in person is a breeze. And OK can be used at home or on the road. A complement to your live performances, OK can add to your fan base for increased sales of recordings. The technology offers an extremely cost-effective, user-friendly method of practicing, recording and self-monitoring your cabaret skills online for the purpose of honing your talent.

Matt operates a modest recording studio using MixCraft software on his home office PC, a studio microphone (Behringer B-1 $80), and a small mixing board (Behringer XENYX1002 $80). The mixer output simply plugs into the microphone jack on any PC, and closed-ear headphones can be used during recording to keep vocal tracks isolated from other tracks. “You don’t need a mixer for OK, but I use one to mix the background music and live vocals for monitoring with my headphones during recording. For a smaller and less expensive option, check out the Behringer MA400 ($25),” suggested Matt.

If you want to forego OK by cobbling together your own karaoke process, you can, with a higher level of effort. You can buy Karaoke versions of some songs from iTunes at $0.99 each. The lyrics to almost any song can be obtained freely via Google Search. You will need to use recording software such as MixCraft. If you wish to publish recorded songs to YouTube, you must first convert them to video format using an application like Windows Live Movie Maker, but Matt found that process to be very tedious, and if you wish to include video of yourself, it requires even more effort and skills.

Matt started looking at OK sites because of their ease of use in recording and publishing music. “I evaluated the two leading OK sites: TheKaraokeChannel and SingSnap, and found that users of both services seem to be very happy.” Matt reported. Both sites offer free trials with access to a small subset of their song catalog, so users can try out the service before spending any money. “TheKaraokeChannel has a slicker interface, but I chose SingSnap for its much wider selection of songs and its active user community,” said Matt.

SingSnap has over 25,000 songs. Users look up songs by title, artist or other criteria, choose practice mode (which displays the lyrics on the screen and plays the background music), and adjust the key of the song up or down in 2-halfstep increments. Once you’re comfortable singing the song, you can record it. Then you review the recording and, if desired, adjust it. If you don’t like the recording, you can re-record. Nobody is expected to follow Frank Sinatra’s “one-take Charlie” example. Since Old Blue Eyes is a tough act to follow, the rest of us can re-record as many times as we like.

Publishing OK recordings to the web for public consumption is easy, and there is no limit to the amount of descriptive text that you can include with each clip. Once published, the URL can be emailed or posted on websites for your fans to enjoy. “Your viewers simply click the “Play” button on the song page. They do not need to register or download anything.” Matt said. SingSnap also provides handy buttons so you can share your recordings via social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Your listeners can even play your recordings on their smart phones. “Using my Android phone, I review SingSnap recordings in the car or on the bus,” said Matt.

SingSnap allows recording of multiple vocal tracks, which is very useful for adding background harmony vocals to songs or recording duets. “You can record your part of the duet, and your partner can subsequently (perhaps days later) record his or her track,” said Matt.

In addition, SingSnap supports webcams (Matt uses a Logitech 9000 $40), so your video can be easily recorded in sync with your vocals, and viewed with the player. “That’s a great way to connect with your online audience, and to review your own performance, facial expressions and body language, in preparation for live performance,” said Matt. SingSnap also offers the option to record original songs. Simply play or patch in your instrumental track and then add as many vocal tracks as you wish.

Both SingSnap and TheKaraokeChannel use Flash technology, which is supported by all web browsers (IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc.) but beware that Apple refuses to support Flash on the iPad or iPhone. Probably within the next few years, there will be mobile device applications that will solve that problem.

OK premium service costs about $10 per month and provides: access to the full song catalog, unlimited recordings, elimination of banner advertisements, recording adjustment tools, pitch shift, and access to the online user community. Any serious user would opt for premium service.

The take-away is that Online Karaoke provides an easy way to practice, record and publish your recordings for anyone with a web browser to easily access, so you can entertain audiences you might not otherwise be able to reach through live performances. And let’s face it, we cabaret artists like to reach as many audience members as we can.