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Jakarta Post

Starvoices: Searching for an online idol

The popularity of talent shows, mainly singing contests on radio and television, is hard to deny – and can turn an ordinary singer into an idol overnight

Putera Hasudungan (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Sun, March 4, 2012

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Starvoices: Searching for an online idol

T

he popularity of talent shows, mainly singing contests on radio and television, is hard to deny – and can turn an ordinary singer into an idol overnight.

But a new road has opened up for would-be singers. Following the steps of stars, who have climbed to fame through YouTube, people can become an online sensation by taking part in the Starvoices contest.

The contest uses three websites — Soundcloud, Twitter and Tumblr. Soundcloud is used to upload and share audio files in mp3 format, Twitter to publish links to each song and Tumblr to show updates and record the competition.

The idea to hold the online singing contest came from Deon Oxivar, Nizar Wijaya, Revol Tamba, Ronald Misael and Philip Takato.

The five men enjoy singing, are active in social media and love watching talent contests on television.

For the online contest, Nizar serves as the host while the other four are the jury.

“We see that there are young people out there who love to sing. It would be good to gather them into a community, especially for those that perhaps have not been discovered by talent shows on television,” Deon says.

“Social media isn’t used only to express feelings. They can also be used to show talents.”

For the judges, only the quality of a participant’s voice matters, not a person’s look.

The five are currently preparing the contest’s second season, which will run from June to December. The first season was held from May to November last year.

Compared to talent contests on the radio or television, an online singing contest was easier for people to join, Deon said. Contestants could record and email their voices using their phones, skipping the time-consuming and painful live audition process.

The contest’s first winner, Fauzia Irva Lestari, a veteran of RCTI’s Idola Cilik in 2007 and TransTV’s Suara Indonesia in 2010, said it was much easier to join the online singing contest.

“I study a song’s lyrics and music, adjust it to my vocal character and record my voice on my phone without any instrument. I emailed it to register and then I joined the contest.”

Although she thinks the online singing contest is much easier, Fahriza, who said she has liked singing since she was in kindergarten, said that the audience can’t compare with those for television.

When the contestants registered, they completed a registration form, attached an audio file containing their voices — singing without music and then sent it to the administrator’s email.

In the first season, 190 people registered. For the first round, the audition, each had to send a recording of their voice. Forty people made it to the next round, when participants had to send another audio file, this time singing to music.

Twenty advanced to the third round.

In the process, the contestants had to pass muster from the judges and also garner votes from the Starvoices followers on Twitter to advance.

The 12 finalists then had to sing different songs every week and were eliminated one by one until there was a winner. The elimination was based on the total of votes sent by followers within 10 hours after the song was been published.

Only then, a new star is born.

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