Auto-Tune, Technical Perfection and Soul
Yesterday, I read a couple of posts by Seth Godin that I tucked away for later contemplation. One, was this short blurb on your “best” being your same, where he ends with the thought “There is no best jazz performance. That’s why it’s interesting.” Then, there was this post entitled “Self-truth and the Best Violinist in the World” that talks about technical proficiency, and striving to be the best at a technical skill. They got the gears in my mind turning a bit.
I thought about watching gymnastics or ice-skating competitions which are judged both on technical skill and presentation. Watching someone perform a highly difficult skill with precision can be amazing to watch, and certainly gets my admiration. There’s a beauty of its own in the execution, timing, performance and landing, but the beauty comes from the human element. The risk, the difficulty, the adrenaline and pushing the limits makes it far more awe-inspiring. Watching an animation of the same feat inspires nothing and has no interest. Likewise, when a competitor sticks to the easier skills, and completes each one perfectly, but takes no risks the performance seems dull and lackluster.
Sticking to what you know, and drilling it over and over, focusing only on following a pre-set formula that everyone else is doing, but trying to beat them in just how perfect that one movement can be prevents the risks that add interest and excitement to a performance. Doing something different, a different kind of combination, a rarely-tried skill, taking risks and putting yourself on the line change a performance from being mildly interesting to being enthralling. For me, it’s far more pleasurable and interesting to watch someone try something new, something unique to them, and mess up a little, than to see a hundred people competing in the same skill at nearly the same level all trying to be just a little more perfect than the others.
This morning I heard a song so auto-tuned I thought my ears would start bleeding. I turned it off, and rubbed my ears in some attempt to get the sound out of my head. Sometimes artists use it in a stylistic way to add auditory depth or interest to a piece, but it’s used everywhere now as a kind of crutch or necessity. I may be alone in this but even subtle uses of it can disturb my ear. The notes may be “right” but they’re off, robotic and empty. Then I came across this interesting piece by Lessley Anderson: Seduced by ‘perfect’ pitch: how Auto-Tune conquered pop music | The Verge. It fit right in with what Godin was saying about technical best, perfection and truth.
Anderson writes, “As humans, we crave connection, not perfection. But we’re not the ones pulling the levers. What happens when an entire industry decides it’s safer to bet on the robot? Will we start to hate the sound of our own voices?” She makes an interesting and thought-inducing point, and follows it up by touching on what I consider the heart in music, the humans behind it creating it:
“When a (blues) singer is ‘flat’ it’s not because he’s doing it because he doesn’t know any better. It’s for inflection!” says Victor Coelho, Professor of Music at Boston University.
Blues singers have traditionally played with pitch to express feelings like longing or yearning, to punch up a nastier lyric, or make it feel dirty, he says. “The music is not just about hitting the pitch.”
. . .
John Parish, the UK-based producer who’s worked with PJ Harvey and Sparklehorse, says that though he uses Auto-Tune on rare occasions, he is no fan. Many of the singers he works with, Harvey in particular, have eccentric vocal styles — he describes them as “character singers.” Using pitch correction software on them would be like trying to get Jackson Pollock to stay inside the lines.
“I can listen to something that can be really quite out of tune, and enjoy it,” says Parish. But is he a dying breed?
“That’s the kind of music that takes five listens to get really into,” says Nikolic, of Poolside. “That’s not really an option if you want to make it in pop music today. You find a really catchy hook and a production that is in no way challenging, and you just gear it up!”
In other words, the individual is taken out to some degree, the nuance, the inflection, the feeling, the authentic and momentary expression, and it’s smoothed out into another copy of the same thing. All perfecting the technical aspect, but removing some of the human. Some artists even use auto-tune during live performances – just in case they don’t hit a note quite right. Is their so-called best with the perfected pitch the truth, and is it what people can connect with? Anderson writes:
If I were a professional musician, would I reject the opportunity to sound, what I consider to be, “my best,” out of principle?
The answer to that is probably no. But then it gets you wondering. How many insecure artists with “annoying” voices will retune themselves before you ever have a chance to fall in love?
Why can be so hard to allow ourselves to be less than perfect, but more authentic, more real – more human? Isn’t it the risk and the reaching that goes beyond perfection to the good that inspires and illuminates the soul of any endeavor?
Seven Billion 