The piercing voices of excited and passionate amateur singers belt out from the auditorium every Thursday during Karaoke Club’s weekly meeting, often accompanied by backing tracks and lyric videos projected on a screen.
The club was founded last year by seniors Richard Zhu, Kaixin Hou, Iden Han and Ruslan Akmyradov, who are co-presidents of the club. They often ate dinner together at the East Dumpling House, a Chinese restaurant in Rockville that offers karaoke, which inspired them to start Karaoke Club. “We thought it was a very good opportunity to bring this club to a wider audience and space,” Zhu said.
The goal of the club was to create a low-pressure environment for students interested in music to express themselves, no prior qualifications needed. “A lot of the music clubs at the school require auditioning to even participate—in karaoke, you just show up,” Hou said.
Han agreed, emphasizing the importance of a judgement-free zone. “There’s not a lot of clubs in the school where you just go and have fun. School is stressful for a lot of kids, so we wanted to create a kind of environment that emphasizes a safe space,” he said. “Everyone, regardless of sexuality, belief, personality and culture, can come here and feel safe. They can feel comfortable going on stage, singing their heart out. It’s all about self-expression.”
Zhu’s own experience in music is limited to self-teaching the guitar and a brief two years in elementary school when he played piano. However, he still loves enjoying and performing, even without formal training. “I do think music is a very universal communication language between people of different backgrounds. It’s a very good opportunity for people of different cultural backgrounds to come together,” he said. “Music transcends the boundaries between the races, ages and genders.”
Han has more experience—as a pianist and cellist, he is a member of the Young Artists of America, an organization for students to perform musical theater compositions. “We perform these really dynamic and fun musical theater compositions,” he said.
Hou has the most musical experience out of all of the founders. She played the piano and violin for ten years, even being accepted into the Maryland Classic Youth Orchestras, one of the most prestigious of its kind in the area. However, she dropped out after facing mental health issues. “I dropped out because I got depressed. That’s when I started voice and I prefer it now,” Hou said. “I was in the singer part of Young Artists. My mom watches a lot of Chinese dramas, so I sing songs from there. I also like to karaoke K-pop and Disney songs.”
She says singing helped alleviate many of her struggles through self-expression. “Self-expression is something that a lot of people don’t ever get to do because of peer pressure or family restrictions,” Hou said. “Music is a universal language and you can open up and express different feelings that are otherwise not acceptable to express. For example, you can sing a really angry song or a really happy song and it’s just contained within the song, but you’re still getting the message across.”
The most important idea that the club strives to embody is that of non-judgement. “We wanna make it a point to clap after every performance because the fact that you put yourself out there is already applaudable,” Hou said. “And it’s a point in itself that Richard is a self-taught guitarist and he has no other singing experience, and he’s the president of the club. We welcome anyone with any background. We don’t judge at all.”
Han agreed and says he encourages all students interested to perform at meetings, regardless of skill level. “This is meant to be fun. This is meant to express yourself,” Han said. “We want to build people’s self-confidence and we ensure that there is no one in this room that is going to judge you or is going to say, ‘You’re not good enough.’ Because everyone is good enough. Everyone has skills. We wanna hear everyone express themselves.”
