SORRY!!! Long post but much of it is instructional (for those of you playing at home heheheheh), thus requiring space...

Tom...
G'day. 2 counter points, I'm afraid.
First, I did actually mention distance from the mic but you gave a few more details about its effects than I, so no big deal there.
Second, key change by 3 half tones? In my experience, it's 6 and once I did find 8 to be the case.
Sorry to be a pedant but half NoTes are actually off pitch. Half ToNes are actual notes.
For anyone who's seen a piano keyboard, the black and white things the pianist's fingers hit are consecutively a half tone apart from each other. They're called keys but I didn't want anyone confusing them with karaoke or musical key as that's a separate subject.
Anyway, 2 of those keys (also known as ''notes'') next to each other are a half TONE or SEMI-TONE apart. If you played a note, skipped one and played the next note along (example: play a white note, skip the black one next to it and play the next white note) the starting and ending note are a full TONE apart. A half NOTE would fall somewhere between the cracks separating each of the current notes on a piano keyboard. I'll come back to that.
NOW, ''how does one apply this to karaoke?'' some of you are no doubt wondering. Well, when you adjust the key of a song up or down one key, that is the equivalent of raising or lowering it by a semi tone or one note in pitch respectively.
In terms of tones and semi-tones, you could sing the familar scale of:
''Doh, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Doh!''
as:
''Doh, Tone, Tone, Semi-Tone, Tone, Tone, Tone, Semi-Tone!''
See? No half NOTES, only half TONES (and no, Homer Simpson did not invent the note ''Doh.'' D'oh!)
Actually, if you look at the row on your computer keyboard right now, beginning with the ''(Caps Lock)'' key we can substitute that row for notes on a piano using the ''Doh Re Mi'' scale example above.
''(Caps Lock), A, S, D, F, etc...'' can - in sequence - be thought of as being a semi tone apart. That is, ''(Caps Lock)'' to ''A'' is a semi tone but ''(Caps Lock)'' to ''S'' is a full tone. Got it? So, Substituting ''(Caps Lock)'' for ''Doh,'' the scale of:
''Doh, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Doh!''
can be likened to:
''(Caps Lock), S, F, G, J, K, ('' '), (Enter)''
Each key on the keyboard is a note. There are no ''half notes'' in pitch. They'd have to be some strange sound that would lie between the keys on the keyboard. Don't know what I mean? Well, when you sing that scale slowly, if you sang ''Doh'' then ''Re,'' if you concentrate, you can also sing a note between the two which is that ''skipped'' note I referred to. Begin the scale again and then try singing a note between ''Mi'' and ''Fa'' or between ''Ti'' and the second ''Doh.'' Odds are you'll have a difficult time doing so cos there IS NO ''skipped'' note to be sung there. ''Mi'' and ''Fa'' and ''Ti'' and the second ''Doh'' are exactly one note - or one semi-tone - apart respectively. =)
Incidentally, that's the difference between ''off-pitch'' and ''off-key.'' Someone ''off-key'' may be singing the wrong note or series of notes but they are still singing a note or series of notes which could be played on a properly tuned musical instrument. Someone ''off-pitch'' is singing a note or series of notes that a properly tuned instrument would NOT be capable of playing. An instrument ''out of tune'' is ''off-pitch.'' A singer who sings out of tune though can do so either through being ''off-pitch'' or ''off-key.''
''Ohhhh..........!'' I hear many of you moan collectively (and others I hear yawn with either boredom or contempt). Heheheheh.
Apologies Tom if you knew this stuff and were just suffering dyslexia regarding 'note' vs 'tone' but as a song writer, it irks me when I notice the term 'half note' referring to matters of pitch rather than timing (as it applies in song writing) so I was compelled to set the record straight given that a LOT of people refer to key change in terms of half NOTES. I think I suffer a bit of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder from time to time like that. Heheheheh. Hopefully, it's been a little bit educational to some, at least... So, endeth the lesson! =)
Submitted by Johnny B on 12-06-2006

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