Alone Karaoke Lower Key

[Dinah Lianes]

Themedicine tested in this study is a fixed-dose combination therapy (or a "polypill") combining blood pressure and cholesterol lowering medications. Researchers assessed the polypill's effects on cardiovascular disease events -- such as heart attack, stroke and cardiovascular death -- when given alone or with aspirin, in patients considered at intermediate risk of cardiovascular disease. They also examined the effects of aspirin alone.

The International Polycap Study (TIPS)-3 is a large, randomized, placebo-controlled trial conducted in nine countries. The study included 5,700 people considered at intermediate risk of developing heart disease. The average age of the participants was 64 years, and 47% were male.

Participants were randomly assigned to different interventions: 1) 75 mg daily of aspirin; 2) a polypill combining blood pressure and cholesterol medication daily; 3) polypill and 75 mg aspirin daily; or 4) vitamin D 5,000 IU daily. Each intervention included a control group who received a matching placebo. The medications in the polypill were atenolol 100mg, ramipril 10mg, hydrochlorothiazide 25 mg, and simvastatin 40 mg.

Over the follow-up period of nearly five years, participants were monitored for the first occurrence of a major cardiovascular event, such as non-fatal heart attack, non-fatal stroke, heart failure, resuscitated cardiac arrest or cardiovascular death.

"Aspirin should be prescribed with a polypill in primary prevention for patients at intermediate risk of heart disease," said Salim Yusuf, M.D., B.S., D. Phil., a co-author of the study and professor of medicine at McMaster University School of Medicine in Toronto, Canada. "Our study results provide important data regarding the role of the polypill in preventing the development of heart disease."

Co-author Prem Pais, M.B.B.S., M.D., a professor in the division of clinical research and training at St. John's Research Institute in Bangalore, India, added, "We were also interested in evaluating if combining blood pressure and cholesterol reduction medications in a single pill would be effective for this population. This is a cost-effective strategy that could help meet global targets of reducing CVD by 30% by 2030."

"Use of a polypill plus aspirin can avert 3 -- 5 million cardiovascular deaths globally," said Yusuf. "Future polypills, with newer statins, may reduce LDL cholesterol and blood pressure to a greater extent and could reduce cardiovascular disease risk greater than 50%."

Its musical content is an instrumental rendition of a well-known popular song. In recent times, lyrics are typically displayed on a video screen, along with a moving symbol, changing colour, or music video images, to guide the singer. In Chinese-speaking countries and regions such as mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore, a karaoke box is called a KTV. The global karaoke market has been estimated to be worth nearly $10 billion.[2]

From 1961 to 1966, the American TV network NBC carried a karaoke-like series, Sing Along with Mitch, featuring host Mitch Miller and a chorus, which superimposed the lyrics to their songs near the bottom of the TV screen for home audience participation.[3] The primary difference between karaoke and sing-along songs is the absence of the lead vocalist.

Sing-alongs (present since the beginning of singing) fundamentally changed with the introduction of new technology. In the late 1960s and into the 1970s, stored audible materials began to dominate the music recording industry and revolutionized the portability and ease of use of band and instrumental music by musicians and entertainers as the demand for entertainers increased globally. This may have been attributable to the introduction of music cassette tapes, technology that arose from the need to customize music recordings and the desire for a "handy" format that would allow fast and convenient duplication of music and thereby meet the requirements of the entertainers' lifestyles and the 'footloose' character of the entertainment industry.

The karaoke-styled machine was developed in various places in Japan. Even before the invention of the first machines, the word "karaoke" had long been used in Japan's entertainment industry to refer to the use of instrumental recordings as backing tracks in situations when a live band could not be arranged for a singer.[4] Japanese engineer Shigeichi Negishi, who ran a consumer electronics assembly business, made the first prototype in 1967;[5][6][7] He subsequently began mass producing coin-operated versions under the brand name "Sparko Box," making it the first commercially available karaoke machine. For media, it used 8-track cassette tapes of commercially available instrumental recordings. Lyrics were provided in a paper booklet.[8] However, he ran into distribution troubles and ceased production of the Sparko Box shortly thereafter.[9] Despite being credited as the first to automate and commercialize the karaoke singalong, Negishi, who died in 2024, never patented his invention.[10] Another early pioneer was Toshiharu Yamashita, who worked as a singing coach, and in 1970 sold an 8-track playback deck with microphone for sing-alongs.[7]

In 1971, nightclub musician Daisuke Inoue[11] independently invented his own karaoke machine in the city of Kobe.[12][13] His biggest contribution was understanding the difficulty amateurs had in singing pop songs, recording his own versions of popular songs in keys that made them easier for casual singers.

As such he also included a rudimentary reverb function to help mask singers' deficiencies. For these reasons, he is often considered to be the inventor of the modern business model for karaoke, even though he was not the first to create a machine and did not, like Negishi or Yamashita, file a patent.[14] Music has long been part of Japan's nightlife, and particularly so in the postwar era, when a variety of establishments such as cabarets and hostess clubs emerged to serve the needs of salarymen unwinding and entertaining clients. Music, whether performed for listening or singing along, played a key role.[15] Inoue, a bandleader, drummer, and Electone keyboardist, specialized in leading sing-alongs at nightclubs in Sannomiya, the entertainment district of the city of Kobe.

He grew so popular that he became overbooked, and began recording instrumentals for clients when he could not personally perform for them. Realizing the potential for the market, he commissioned a coin-operated machine that metered out several minutes of singing time. Like Negishi's, it was based on an 8-Track cassette deck, and Inoue called it the "8 Juke."[16] Inoue loaned the machines to establishments for free in exchange for a portion of the monthly earnings from the machines.[17] He placed the first 8 Jukes in Sannomiya's "snack bars," but they initially failed to take off. Inoue then hired hostesses to ostentatiously sing on them, which successfully sparked interest. This also caused a great deal of friction with Inoue's fellow musicians, who saw it as drawing customers away from them.

Nevertheless karaoke spread throughout Kobe, then, over the course of the Seventies, all of Japan as major manufacturers such as JVC began producing their own versions of the singing machine.[18] Karaoke was long performed mainly in bars and hostess clubs in front of other patrons, but in the Eighties, a new style with private rooms emerged, called karaoke boxes. This became the dominant form of karaoke performance in Japan. In 2004, Daisuke Inoue was awarded the tongue-in-cheek Ig Nobel Peace Prize for inventing karaoke, "thereby providing an entirely new way for people to learn to tolerate each other."[19]

The patent holder of the karaoke machine is Roberto del Rosario, who is from the Philippines. He developed the karaoke's sing-along system in 1975 and is recognized as the sole holder of a patent for a karaoke system in the world.[20]

Karaoke soon spread to the rest of Asia and other countries all over the world. In-home karaoke machines soon followed but lacked success in the American and Canadian markets. When creators became aware of this problem, karaoke machines were no longer being sold strictly for the purpose of karaoke but as home theater systems to enhance television watching to "movie theater like quality". Home theater systems took off, and karaoke went from being the main purpose of the stereo system to a side feature.

As more music became available for karaoke machines, more people within the industry saw karaoke as a profitable form of lounge and nightclub entertainment. It is not uncommon for some bars to have karaoke performances seven nights a week, [25] commonly with high-end sound equipment superior to the small, stand-alone consumer versions. Dance floors and lighting effects are also becoming common sights in karaoke bars. Lyrics are often displayed on multiple television screens around the bar.

A basic karaoke machine consists of a music player, microphone inputs, a means of altering the pitch of the played music, and an audio output. Some low-end machines attempt to provide vocal suppression so that one can feed regular songs into the machine and remove the voice of the original singer; however this was, historically, rarely effective. Most common machines are CD+G, Laser Disc, VCD or DVD players with microphone inputs and an audio mixer built in, though VHS VCRs are sometimes used.[26] CD+G players use a special track called subcode to encode the lyrics and pictures displayed on the screen while other formats natively display both audio and video.

Most karaoke machines have technology[27] that electronically changes the pitch of the music so that amateur singers can choose a key that is appropriate for their vocal range, while maintaining the original tempo of the song. (Old systems which used cassettes changed the pitch by altering playback speed, but none are still on the market, and their commercial use is virtually nonexistent.)

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