Auto-Tune

Have all the pop songs started to sound exactly the same? Have you started to think you're becoming senile because you can't tell one performance from another? Well, blame it all on auto-tune.

According to Wikipedia, this is a software and/or hardware device that takes any performance and corrects all the out of tune parts.

According to Wikipedia, "According to the Boston Herald, 'Country stars Reba McEntire, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw have all confessed to using Auto-Tune in performance, claiming it is a safety net that guarantees a good performance.' Sara Evans, John Michael Montgomery and Gary LeVox of the group Rascal Flatts also rely on Auto-Tune to compensate for pitch problems. However, other country music singers, such as Loretta Lynn, Allison Moorer, Trisha Yearwood, Vince Gill, Garth Brooks, Martina McBride, and Patty Loveless have refused to use Auto-Tune."

Isn't this interesting! I have started to wonder what an auto-tuned "O mio babbino caro" would sound like. Or maybe an auto-tuned Elvis. Opera may be the last vestige of real singing.

Please see "Tools of Expression" in the previous blog entry. Pitch modifications are part of the song, part of the artist's interpretation. Except for the ones that mean you're tone deaf and should probably not be singing in the first place.

The mind boggles. It isn't your imagination--they actually want to all sound alike.



Or auto-tune anything. Don't you really like Katie Couric better this way?