Here comes “Sing,” Apple Music’s hi-tech karaoke.

New feature on Apple’s music service allows users to sing along with their favorite artists, who lead the way, while lyrics synchronized with the song scroll across the iPhone screen (or on the Apple Tv)

Do you want to sing? Well, now you can do it directly with your favorite singers. How? With “Sing,” Apple Music’s new feature that makes available to budding singers, or even wanting professionals, the ability to sing favorite songs by following the lyrics, spelled out to perfection, on the screen of a smartphone, iPad, computer or Apple TV connected to a TV set. If until now the scrolling lyrics feature during a song, available not only on Apple Music but also in other music services, allowed people to sing by following the lyrics on the screen that scrolled ‘lighting up’ one line at a time, now with “Sing” things get easier and more interesting, and more like karaoke, with the “Real Time Lyrics” feature, because the illumination of the lyrics follows, to perfection, the words when they are sung, or rather the syllables when they are sung, which means that, if you know the melody well, the chances of error are reduced to a really minimum. It also means, with a good chance, being able to follow a rap song for which syllabication is crucial. And if we really don’t feel like singing the whole song, but only the chorus, for example, moving the song scrolling slider goes directly to the desired point, music and lyrics.

Until now, the possibilities of karaoke on a cell phone were somewhat limited, while “Sing” allows us, really, something more, not only a better handling of the written text with hyphenation or even the division of the text on the screen, one part on the right and one part on the left, in the case of duets. Because the real special feature of “Sing,” what makes the product particularly interesting for a decidedly broad audience, is the possibility of singing ‘with’ the artist in the original version of his song. It is possible because on the right side of the screen a touch slider can be activated that allows you to lower the volume not of the song but only of the singer’s voice, which can then act as a guide while remaining in the background and leaving the center stage to those who want to sing, without the voice of the favorite singer disappearing. Also because the volume can be adjusted as desired. Millions of songs are available for “Sing,” and Apple Music also offers as many as 50 playlists with many songs divided by genres and styles.

Designed for iPhone and iPad
Technically speaking, “Sing” is an improvement on the existing, certainly not a resounding innovation, but the interesting thing is not so much that one can do advanced karaoke on the home television set, consoles for years have offered this and more, including choreography while singing, as much as the fact that the product comes, or rather perhaps more correctly, is designed for smartphones, or at any rate for mobility. When one considers that the audio of Apple’s mobile products, smartphones and tablets, offer the best audio output around, it is clear that the pleasure of being able to sing for example in a car, alone or with magnificent family choirs, makes “Sing” definitely appealing, as does making it a collective pastime even there where a TV set is not, or in really extreme cases, singing in front of the fire at the beach without needing to carry a guitar and, necessarily, someone who can play it. The possibilities of “Sing,” in short, are very great, especially if we consider that in order to sing a song following the lyrics spelled out on the screen, one does not need to be Mariah Carey or Michael Bublè, in fact one can with great ease, even be completely out of tune, and still have fun.

No doubt some will turn their noses up at the possibility of modifying an original song to the point of reducing Elton John or Eminem’s voice to pure background. But playing with music, let’s face it, is no crime, no more so than having fun with transferables putting a mustache on a poster of the Mona Lisa, or trying to rewrite “That Branch of Lake Como” in our own way. On the contrary, singing is definitely liberating, positive, beautiful, useful. Singing better, with the real music of one’s favorite song and together with the singer we love, is just a plus. When we want to listen to him sing alone we will certainly not think of doing it through karaoke.