This week's CDM Fine Reading Award goes to channelnewsasia.com for profiling an inventor we really care about: the inventor of karaoke, Daisuke Inoue. Aside from being the most horrendous case of "really should have patented that" ever, Inoue turns out to be an Ig Nobel Prize Winner (alongside the authors of published report The Effects of Country Music on Suicide),
and reached his stroke of genius by being . . . a really lazy
accompanist. (I can relate to that.) What's next? Automatic
cockroach-killing gadgetry and the ability to wash dishes and laundry
without soap. (I can relate to those, too.)
Flash-forward to now and witness the digital music connection here: new
karaoke machines by Taito are powered with geeky synthesis description
language Csound, and can even correct your tone-deaf singing. MIT creator Dr. Vercoe brought one to last year's SEAMUS festival, where we learned electro-acoustic pioneers like Jon Appleton really can't sing.