Daniel Saltman

Since the late 90's the software Auto-Tune has slowly emerged as a dominating force in today's music. We see it wildly advocated by T-Pain on one hand and railed against in uncompromising terms by artists like Jay-Z and Death Cab For Cutie. So just what is Auto-Tune, and why is it so controversial? To state it briefly and concisely: Auto-Tune is tone correction technology. It allows for any vocal part that doesn't quite meet it's mark to simply be digitally corrected, and brought to it's proper pitch. Whether a little flat or off the mark completely, Auto-Tune remedies the situation and delivers pitch-perfection.

So what does this mean for the music industry? Well first, lets look at some benefits of Auto-Tune before we flesh out it's negatives. Artists are now able to more quickly produce their work, as often the need for countless additional takes is eliminated. The artist can now simply give a few takes, and select the one they feel gives the most appropriate emotional tone for the piece and correct from there. Furthermore it allows the artist to experiment with things that are beyond their natural abilities. This can mean hitting notes and melodies higher or lower than their range, or it can even mean modifying their voice to give it the ever popular whiny robot sound. Thus if they can think it they can do it. In short Auto-Tune saves the industry time and money, and it gives artists more options. Furthermore it ensures that every recording can and will be perfect.

Now on the reverse side of that, one of the most prevalent critiques of the recording industry today is it's focus on marketability over talent. Auto-Tune flat out eliminates the need for talent. They can take virtually anyone off the street that they think represents a marketable image, and throw them into a studio. The concept of an artist who makes him/herself, writes his/her own music, evolves his/her craft and emerges now becomes an antiquated device, as now music is written by a staff, performed by any marketable image, accompanied by staff musicians and perfected by software and machinery. One could well argue that this could prove a stagnating or perverting effect on popular music, as new sounds and artists, are no longer searched for but manufactured.

In short this seems to represent an industrialization of music itself. What does this mean? Well in essence industrialization though a symbol of man's evolution and progression also often represents a de-evolution and deskilling of man. For example in the earliest phases of industrialization we saw labor divided and specialized for factory line assembly to an extent that men were no longer craftsmen but rather bolt tighteners or doll head twisters (this being all their day consisted of). Productivity and efficiency were improved, bringing wider distributions to goods and services at lower cost, but at the same time it represented a deskilling of man in practical labors. So too we see that with the industrialization of music it's effect may well prove the deskilling of people in things musical. The need to learn to sing may very well be negated by the advent of tone correction technology. Why go through years of practice to learn to sing note for note with accuracy, when you can have a piece of software do it for you instantly? As this technology becomes more and more widely known and available skill in music may very well be reduced to skill in the use of computer software.

Well whether you are camped for or against Auto-Tune the truth is it's here to stay. It's become the industry standard that recorded music will be pitch corrected. Perhaps this may seem harmless when in the scale of a flat note or two on a record being fixed, but if you can fix one or two why not the whole thing? With so many artists adopting willingly and recording companies encouraging it seems a trend unlikely to be reversed. It's even been brought to the point where artist are able institute it's use in live performances. The emergence of such a technology creates a world where anyone, anywhere, regardless of talent is capable of stardom. With such a wave of popular force one might do well to apply a little Disney philosophy to the situation (well Pixar philosophy may be more accurate) from the movie “The Incredibles”, that once every one is special, no one will be.

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