Thursday, May 31, 2012

The Revolution Of Autotune



According to Tank Wire, approximately 95% of Top 40 songs use auto-tune.

“What’s auto-tune?” you ask? It’s that revolutionary invention that makes any word, phrase, rap, belch, and laugh into…BAM…music!

You may recognize the phrase “Hide your kids, hide your wives,” lyrics from a viral, auto-tuned rendition of a once little-known reporter interview.  Or, you might recognize the familiar “digitized” melodies of Ke$ha and Lady Gaga (pre-Lady Gaga was much more eloquent with words, much more stylistically artistic with voice, but lacked pitch every now and then).
Want to achieve this ability? Now, you can auto-tune any phrase with the touch of a button! iPhone has developed an application called “Songify,” which directly allows consumers to change any word, phrase, rap, belch, and laugh into song.

But wait. Question time: Isn’t music a thing of talent and art?
Society’s reply: Oops.

We went from Mozart, to Etta James, to The Beatles to Led Zeppelin, to Britney Spears (cough. Lipsync), to Nikki Minaj.

WHAT HAPPENED?

Money happened. Statistics. Business. The Apprentice.

The revolution of auto-tune has created the abilities to erase vocal mistakes and/or create simple masterpieces, thus making production quicker and appealing to the simple-minded mass of listeners whose’ ears are pining for perfectly pitched, rhythmic beats of the auto-tune world. Here, the deduction of auto-tune, through live music or pure recording, may create a feeling of genuine talent, but tends to reach a limited audience, thus decreasing revenue. However, the addition of auto-tune creates the ability to percolate throughout the population, thus welcoming itself to the wallets of many.

In a sense, auto-tuning has nulled and numbed the impact of musical passion, replacing it with entrepreneurial desires.

The question now becomes: When does music infinitely change from art to business? Or more so: How far and how much is a musician willing to compromise for fame?

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