I was touring around my home town recently to see what entertainment was on in the pubs and the clubs and what I saw was a bit of an eye opener.
There were one or two "live singers" doing their thing with backing tracks in the pubs that were sounding pretty stale to say the least.
They all just appeared to be going through the motions and the few people in venue looked just as bored as they did.
You could feel that the singer's weren't creating any atmosphere so I carried on checking out different venues On my travels I found some Karaoke bars and I couldn't believe how packed they were.
These places were heaving and they were all well and truly cranked up to party.
An X-Factor audience would have nothing on these guys for enthusiasm! Only a short time ago karaoke was just a cheap throw-away night to keep the customers happy.
You know the kind of thing:- "Let's buy a cheap karaoke player and some karaoke discs, shove it in the corner and let the clients entertain themselves!" Now Karaoke Singing seems to have taken on a whole new life.
What I found interesting was that it didn't matter how good or bad the singer was, a male singer or a female singer, they still got a massive cheer at the end of their performance.
What I found even more interesting was how good some of these singers actually were.
In between the " I will Survives" and the hen party's singing "Dancing Queen" there were some vocalists with some real talent.
I really felt that with a little guidance that they could quite easily put a live act together and start to earn some serious money from what at the moment was just a hobby.
If you're one of those people that is passionate about singing and would like to take it to the next level and actually become a singer it's really not that difficult to do.
You just need to be shown a few guidelines or a few simple steps to get you started.
So lets imagine you've decided this is your next career move and you ask yourself "How do I become a professional singer".
But where exactly do you start? What do you need to do to actually get started? Where can you go to get the information needed to set yourself up as a professional singer? A good place to start is by talking to other "acts" that do live performing for a living.
But be careful, you don't want to be talking to the type of act is just going through the motions.
Get out to various gigs and find out who the good acts are.
Check out the ones that know how to "do it".
See what kind of reaction they get from their audience.
It can take some time to learn from these pros and many of them won't give much away to you.
It can be quite frustrating but if you persevere you'll find that singing, even on a part time basis can be extremely rewarding.
And dare I say..
..
..
..
Financially rewarding too!