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Shigeichi Negishi, the inventor of the world's first karaoke machine, has passed away at the age of 100, but his influence on popular culture will live on.
On March 16, Japanese media reported that Mr. Shigeichi Negishi, the engineer who invented the world's first karaoke machine, passed away on January 29.
It is known that he died from complications from a fall not long ago, at the age of 100.
Mr. Negishi is an engineer born in 1923 in Japan, commonly known as one of the first people to invent the karaoke machine along with Daisuke Inoue.
Before inventing karaoke, Shigeichi Negishi ran an electronics company and had many years of experience. He said that the idea for the machine came from a time when a colleague criticized him for singing badly.
Engineer Negishi then decided to create a means to play background music, helping his voice to be supported by background music, and at the same time helping the user sing more in tune.
So in 1967, the world knew about the first karaoke machine. Mr. Negishi created the Sparko Box karaoke machine with the function of supporting users to sing along with pre-recorded music.
The original karaoke machine had a very simple structure, a portable speaker-like device and a microphone connected to it.
The machine has a rectangular hole on top for tape, volume control, sound balance, tone control and a coin slot.
Mr. Negishi could have made a huge amount of money from this invention, but he stopped improving the Sparko Box and did not patent the machine.
The reason, the Japanese guessed, was that he was tired of the controversy that this invention encountered in the early days when it came to the public.
The nearly 40-year-old machine still works smoothly, here is a video of Mr. Shigeichi Negishi when he was 95 years old - Video: Kotaku
Many singers in Japan at that time feared their position was threatened because the Japanese people could now sing to each other.
Bands and singers at that time called on their fans to boycott this product and return the purchased machines, and declared that they would not perform at bars that had karaoke machines.
In addition, Sparko Box also sparked controversy about noise pollution in public places, causing its creator a headache.
The problem of distributing goods and maintaining repair services for the machine is also very difficult to solve for a small electronics company like Mr. Shigeichi Negishi.
That's why he gave up developing Sparko Box after failing in business, leaving the playing field to large electronics corporations.
However, modern world history researchers and the Japanese still recognize him as the true father of karaoke.
Mr. Negishi has inspired generations of Japanese people about how we can turn a small idea into a world cultural icon. The karaoke machine also contributes to bringing the community closer together.
Although it appeared in Japan in 1971, it was not until the 1990s that Mr. Negishi's invention was introduced to Vietnam thanks to the development in Vietnam-Japan relations after Doi Moi.
On the basis of strengthening economic and diplomatic relations, cultural relations between the two countries have also been rapidly promoted.
As a result, not only Japanese comics (manga), karaoke quickly attracted the attention of all classes and ages in Vietnam. Karaoke bars exploded in urban areas and spread to the countryside.
Even the speaker we often hear our neighbors singing with is the most primitive form of Mr. Negishi's old karaoke machine.
However, the problem of noisy karaoke singing in public places is also widespread in Vietnam.
From an invention to help people have fun and get closer together as its creator wished, karaoke seems to be causing many villages and neighborhoods to split up, becoming a source of suffering for many people because of the increasing noise pollution problem.
The birthplace of karaoke has proven that this problem is not insurmountable. In Japan, the government has taken drastic measures to punish individuals and organizations that sing karaoke loudly in public places.
Because Japan's work culture is harsh, many workers just want to go home to sleep, so urban noise pollution greatly affects the working and living lives of Japanese people.
At the same time, electronics corporations have also launched many models of karaoke machines that do not make noise, and the prices of karaoke bars in Japan are getting cheaper, so the problem of noise pollution caused by karaoke has basically been solved.
Many people mistakenly believe that Daisuke Inoue is the father of the karaoke machine, but in fact, there were 5 people who announced the development of this type of machine in the past. Among them, Mr. Shigeichi Negishi was the earliest, 4 years before Daisuke Inoue.
However, Mr. Daisuke Inoue was more successful with his machine because he understood the market well (he was a musician who often performed at bars - karaoke's customer base).
In 2004, Inoue was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize – an award that honors achievements that “first make people laugh, but then make them think.”
