Love it, hate it, or couldn't care less - Auto-Tune seems here to stay. I've written on the topic of Auto-Tune many times in the past (Please Wait While Your Vocalist Is Loading, Let Your Music Have Life - Keep it Human, and Now You Too Can "Sing" Like Antoine Dodson).
However I just read a great new article worthy of sharing. Following are a few key points I found especially quotable:
"The fact that one can or cannot sing no longer has much bearing on whether one will or will not sing".
"Auto-Tune defies the myth of the creative gift".
"The microphone, in a sense, was the Auto-Tune of its day, doing for amplitude what Hildebrand’s invention has done for pitch".
"I can think of no sound quite as oppressive as the systematic execution of technical perfection
What matters most in music—what music is—is sound, and I can think of no sound quite as oppressive as the systematic execution of technical perfection. Auto-Tune, by making every song perfectly correct, makes every song wrong".
"To say that someone can sing can mean simply that the person can sing on key, and it is elementally important to hit the right notes. The trouble with Auto-Tune is that it applies too rigid a definition of rightness. It adjusts every tone with unyielding, unvarying precision, squarely in the mathematical center of the note. But no one sings that way—not even the world’s most esteemed opera singers. In every form of vocal music, the scale is a framework for expressive interpretation, not a system of regimentation. What it means above all to say that someone can sing is that the person can communicate the content of the words and music; and emotional expression, in vocal music, involves the deft, intelligent manipulation of pitch. A skilled singer knows how to shade a moment in a song by, say, hovering near the bottom of a note—within the note, in tune, but just below the center of the tone. A great blues singer may use three chords, but find countless possibilities for tonal variation in a single note. The music, the art, is contained in those variations. Bessie Smith, processed through Auto-Tune, would have all the soul of Siri".
View the full article "Imperfect Pitch" by David Hajdu.
For further feedback to this article see the post "Auto-Tune: Further Discussion".
However I just read a great new article worthy of sharing. Following are a few key points I found especially quotable:
"The fact that one can or cannot sing no longer has much bearing on whether one will or will not sing".
"Auto-Tune defies the myth of the creative gift".
"The microphone, in a sense, was the Auto-Tune of its day, doing for amplitude what Hildebrand’s invention has done for pitch".
"I can think of no sound quite as oppressive as the systematic execution of technical perfection
What matters most in music—what music is—is sound, and I can think of no sound quite as oppressive as the systematic execution of technical perfection. Auto-Tune, by making every song perfectly correct, makes every song wrong".
"To say that someone can sing can mean simply that the person can sing on key, and it is elementally important to hit the right notes. The trouble with Auto-Tune is that it applies too rigid a definition of rightness. It adjusts every tone with unyielding, unvarying precision, squarely in the mathematical center of the note. But no one sings that way—not even the world’s most esteemed opera singers. In every form of vocal music, the scale is a framework for expressive interpretation, not a system of regimentation. What it means above all to say that someone can sing is that the person can communicate the content of the words and music; and emotional expression, in vocal music, involves the deft, intelligent manipulation of pitch. A skilled singer knows how to shade a moment in a song by, say, hovering near the bottom of a note—within the note, in tune, but just below the center of the tone. A great blues singer may use three chords, but find countless possibilities for tonal variation in a single note. The music, the art, is contained in those variations. Bessie Smith, processed through Auto-Tune, would have all the soul of Siri".
View the full article "Imperfect Pitch" by David Hajdu.
For further feedback to this article see the post "Auto-Tune: Further Discussion".
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