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What is motivating people to learn to sing?

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kickingtone

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52 minutes ago, Felipe Carvalho said:

Do note however that you start the thread saying that using autotune to achieve the standards of pitch and rhythm makes a mockery of reviewing, implying that reviewing depends on these, and later you complain about these same standards.

There is no implication that you are reviewing to autotune standards. The implication is that you cannot accurately review what has been altered.

For example, you could use autotune to make you sound like a robotic chipmunk. That would make a mockery of reviewing your actual vocals. It would not imply that the reviewer is holding you to the standards of a robotic chipmunk.

Yes, I don't like a lot of what autotuning does, and often how it is used. Regardless of that, it disguises what needs reviewing. Most singers want improve their pitch. If you disguise your pitch, how is it going to get reviewed?

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There is no one person in this world that is pitch perfect (according to the great Davie of harmony central) otherwise we would all be robots (welcome to agenda 2030 and AI (artifisal intelegence) running the mind though the smart grid like the borg in star-treck)

So there is always room for improvment with pitch changing software like melodine when mixing and mastering the track

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51 minutes ago, kickingtone said:

Robert, this is not about production. It's about training -- someone practising.

 

Pitch correcting your vocals and then asking people to listen and advise you on how to improve, makes very little sense. He for sure was not asking people how to tune his vocals better, so why the pitch correction?

Oh, sorry. Wasn't paying attention... Someone pitch corrected their vocals and then asked for advise on the pitch correction? Maybe that is silly. But again, if its just 5 seconds, it is a none issue. If it is caked on for the entire song, then that is ridiculous.

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Well the Great Davie over at the harmony central forum said as a rule (i guess when he is mixing and mastering) that pitch alteration is ok from 5-15% of the mix but 15-30%, then send it back to the singer

 

But again there is allways work hear for a good sound engineer hear (like CD, SLM friend) if we are selling a hacked reality dressed up in a hollow matrix (TV and computer screen and more fun fooling harold! (pooper))

 

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=david+icke+hollow+matrix

https://social.davidicke.com/index.php?/topic/1652-is-the-afterlife-a-trap-as-well/&page=3

 

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On 1/15/2020 at 8:58 PM, kickingtone said:

Yes, I don't like a lot of what autotuning does, and often how it is used. Regardless of that, it disguises what needs reviewing. Most singers want improve their pitch. If you disguise your pitch, how is it going to get reviewed?

Most singers want to sound good and sometimes pitch and relative perception is a problem. But there are other much more important things, reason why the reporter on that video still sounds lame even after a professional audio engineer tries to fix her voice, and even on the "less evident autotune" version.

However the issue I am pointing is that according to your own words following the rules on pitch would be comparable to forcing an artist to use a certain shade of color to represent a sky or whatever. And yet you complain that something the guy did (which happens to be autotune) is preventing you from knowing how well he can follow said rules.

So which is it? :) And where is the link to the original thread so we can see what was going on instead of just your version?

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I prefer hearing singers just sing.  Real good singers can sing well with or without backing music.  These days, there is so much over production and studio tricks/work done it makes it easy to be decieved into thinking someone is a decent singer when they are not. 

When I record my guitar work, for example, I do it straight into my phone. What you hear is what I can do at the moment.  (I don't sing into my phone because I sound like shit and I can accept that singing isn't my talent. Lol. )

Anyway, the less smoke and mirrors the better, in my opinion. If we have to over produce, we are only deceiving ourselves and others.

A real good voice sounds good, period. 

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12 minutes ago, HiCu said:

A real good voice sounds good, period. 

        What we are talking about is when you do not sound good and want to improve. What good is it to use autotune and effects when asking for assessment on the problems we may have and how to fix them. 

 

16 minutes ago, HiCu said:

we are only deceiving ourselves and others

      The electronics were meant to enhance not deceive. It seems that now the electronic manipulation is itself used as part of the "Art" of singing. Just as the use of Distortion pedals, Talkboxes and phaseshifting is used in the "Art" of Guitar Playing. You still need to sound "Good" without the electronics before the electronics can enhance the sound.

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1 hour ago, Felipe Carvalho said:

Most singers want to sound good and sometimes pitch and relative perception is a problem. But there are other much more important things, reason why the reporter on that video still sounds lame even after a professional audio engineer tries to fix her voice, and even on the "less evident autotune" version.

How important things are is very subjective. What is more important to you is less important to someone else, or even discordant (and vice versa).

One person likes rap music, another person says it is "not music". The only sure thing is that people have different musical taste.

I don't like rap, but I am not going to deny that it is a musical art form that can deliver a very powerful message to those who are into it. I've seen people seemingly possessed by its effect. I don't have to like it personally to appreciate its legitimacy as an art form.

1 hour ago, Felipe Carvalho said:

However the issue I am pointing is that according to your own words following the rules on pitch would be comparable to forcing an artist to use a certain shade of color to represent a sky or whatever. And yet you complain that something the guy did (which happens to be autotune) is preventing you from knowing how well he can follow said rules.

So which is it? :) And where is the link to the original thread so we can see what was going on instead of just your version?

No. It is preventing me from knowing how "well I think he can sing". You are the one equating that with "following autotune rules".

Nowhere have I said that a review is about knowing how well a singer is following whatever rules autotune uses.

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6 minutes ago, MDEW said:

The electronics were meant to enhance not deceive. It seems that now the electronic manipulation is itself used as part of the "Art" of singing. Just as the use of Distortion pedals, Talkboxes and phaseshifting is used in the "Art" of Guitar Playing. You still need to sound "Good" without the electronics before the electronics can enhance the sound.

The art of PRODUCING is not the same as the art of SINGING, though.

And the fact that you put "good" in quotes signifies that the whole concept is pretty meaningless when you try to make things objective.

You could ask a thousand people and you may get a wide split of answers regarding whether a singer sounded good/bad before autotuning, and better/worse after it.

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     I put good in quotes to designate that GOOD is relative to the listeners in general . Each genre, even though inherent to themselves and different to others, has their own sense of what is GOOD.

    Even you post videos and ask what sounds better between two different placements. You have a particular reason and a goal in mind, but there is still some type of goal and a reason for wanting a particular sound or effect from whichever sound gives the effect.

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19 minutes ago, MDEW said:

Even you post videos and ask what sounds better between two different placements. You have a particular reason and a goal in mind, but there is still some type of goal and a reason for wanting a particular sound or effect from whichever sound gives the effect.

My last placement thread, all I asked really was can you HEAR a difference. I didn't ask if it was better.

Yes, I had a goal in mind, but it was MY goal of what I thought the song needed. I am prepared for my opinion to be idiosyncratic. To my knowledge, I was not following any rule of any genre.

If I do ask if something sounds "better", I am asking for individual opinions. I don't really pay much attention to genre norms.

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5 minutes ago, kickingtone said:

My last placement thread, all I asked really was can you HEAR a difference. I didn't ask if it was better.

Yes, I had a goal in mind, but it was MY goal of what I thought the song needed. I am prepared for my opinion to be idiosyncratic. To my knowledge, I was not following any rule of any genre.

    Then why even ask? You could hear a difference and you could feel a difference. The response of other listeners is irrelevant. You have in mind what you want to do and what effect you are looking for and that effect would be different from the effect it has on anyone else. If you are looking to invoke or provoke an effect on others you would be confined to their relative sensibility . 

  Even though singing is an individual expression it is usually meant to elicit or provoke a response in other people. An audience, even if that audience is yourself or like minded people.  If you are singing for your own enjoyment, then it does not matter what anyone else thinks about it. But if singing for the enjoyment of others then it is a good thing to have some idea of what their tastes are and how to express those tastes.

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Actually....scratch that whole last post.

What you hear on the radio and is recorded by record companies has nothing to do with what you the "artist" or the you the "listener" has in mind. It is what they want you to buy and what they want to promote. You conform to what is required by the studio if an artist and what is available to the public if a listener.

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Hearing a difference, interpreting a difference and saying whether the difference is good or bad are three different things.

for example, someone into heavy rock could ask, "can you hear a difference", and even if I am not into heavy rock, I could say, "yes" or "no". I may then describe the physical quality of the difference as I perceive it, e.g "it's more gravelly/it's shriller/it's more distorted". That could still be useful information to the rock singer even though kickingtone hasn't a clue what the difference is supposed to signify, or whether it represents an improvement.

Or, in some situations, someone may want to be reassured that there is NO significant audible difference in a change of placement -- that they can make the same sound two different ways, each being useful in the dynamics of different situations.

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33 minutes ago, MDEW said:

Actually....scratch that whole last post.

What you hear on the radio and is recorded by record companies has nothing to do with what you the "artist" or the you the "listener" has in mind. It is what they want you to buy and what they want to promote. You conform to what is required by the studio if an artist and what is available to the public if a listener.

(People can produce their own music these days, so the influence of record companies is not so strong).

Even so, it all depends on the cachet of the artist as to how much of his original idea gets through. The listener will also gravitate towards what he likes. He is not totally at the mercy of the whim of marketeers.

There are artists of all kinds who don't even care about maximizing the size of their listener base. Some are quite happy to be niche artists.

And then you get groups like ABBA who were able to do both. They only published what they liked, and they were successful at the same time. Despite all those fickle measurements like "cool factor" and "aura", what mattered actually stood the test of time, and that was generation-proof music. Yeah... that "uncool" clean image didn't change the music. It only changed the experience for those who were into fandom. The music pretty much remains what it is.

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35 minutes ago, kickingtone said:

And then you get groups like ABBA who were able to do both

It helps when you have super tight harmonies, good looking men and women, syncopated rhythms and pleasing melodies that cross genres. Not to mention universal subject matters.

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48 minutes ago, MDEW said:

It helps when you have super tight harmonies, good looking men and women, syncopated rhythms and pleasing melodies that cross genres. Not to mention universal subject matters.

Sounds like fewer rules/boundaries.

From what I have read, ABBA, wrote songs "by ear", neither Benny nor Bjorn being able to write musical notation. They jammed backward and forward on a guitar and "out-of-tune piano (as Bjorn put it)" until something sounded good to them. Benny was the "keyboard wizard", and I get the impression that he didn't stick to rules. When they transcribed his keyboard music for the ABBA musicals, that was a problem they had to overcome.

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15 hours ago, MDEW said:

Basics. Tone, Pitch, harmonic intervals and syncopation. Meaning there was structure that could be followed by individuals.

But these are not rules. You can speak and produce all those things. Syncopation is even the opposite of a rule.

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In the comments section you have a bunch of self-professed musicians boasting about how they are so "musically" aware, that this makes them cringe. And others saying how "hilarious" it is. Right. That reminds me of folk who say they find Shakespeare funny.  "A trade, sir, that, I hope, I may use with a safe conscience; which is, indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles." --- wooahahahahaha-ha!

A handful of people didn't hear anything particularly amiss. (Why should they? They didn't buy the rule!) A couple of people said that "after a while" it sounded fine! <---- basically what happened with me. Easily by the end, my ears had tuned in with the F#.

 

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    But, He was still singing in "F Major" until he said F "Sharp". You had 1 dissonant note throughout the whole thing, only when he sang the word "Sharp". And F# is a Minor 2 or "Flat 9" in the key of F Major. It is not ''''Breaking any Rules". A Flat 9 is common in some forms of music.

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10 minutes ago, MDEW said:

    But, He was still singing in "F Major" until he said F "Sharp".

Yes. Didn't say he wasn't.

12 minutes ago, MDEW said:

You had 1 dissonant note throughout the whole thing, only when he sang the word "Sharp". And F# is a Minor 2 or "Flat 9" in the key of F Major. It is not ''''Breaking any Rules". A Flat 9 is common in some forms of music.

Just read the comments -- "cringe", "torture", "hilarious", "tone deaf" etc. etc. + a heap of analysis about the keys. That suggests that a lot of "musicians" think it is more than normal "dissonance".

Are you saying that this particular dissonance is common in some forms of music? Why then all the extreme reactions? 

 

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I wrote this before your last post:

But, Yes I do see music theory and genres and such as Guidelines. Not rules. Basics are basics. A foundation on which to build. Not a static rule. You must do this if singing or playing in a certain genre. Still, there are elements that put music into certain categories and those elements can be interchanged and "Mixed" beyond certain points they either become there own Genre or they are in a different catagory all together.

29 minutes ago, kickingtone said:

Are you saying that this particular dissonance is common in some forms of music? Why then all the extreme reactions? 

Because the majority of "audiences" are influenced by their own musical environments. The BASIC difference between Jazz, Gypsy Jazz, Blues, Country and Rock are the extended chords used. These are the BASIC 3 note chords plus other notes in the scale added to the 3 notes so you can have 4 note chords or 5 note chords. A chord is 2 or more notes played at the same time. A Chord progression is a series of chords played in a certain pattern. You can have a basic chord pattern lets say 4 bars of the 1 chord. 4 Bars of the 4 chord 2 bars of the 1 chord and 2 bars of the 5 chord. A "Country" song uses mainly Basic Chords based on 3 notes. In the key of G your progression would be G, C, G, D .

 These would be for the background rhythms.

Jazz would add the Major 7 so you would have Gmaj7, Cmaj7, Gmaj7  D7 .  Gypsy jazz uses the 6th as an extended chord. G6, C6, G6 and D7.  Rock uses what is known as Power chords and used 2 note chords instead of 3 note chords Chords made of a Root note and the 5th note. it would be noted as G5, C5, G5  and D5.

These different alterations give a different feel to the over all music. These patterns are made from the various scales and scale degrees used.

If all you ever heard was the basic "Country" chords then the Jazz Gypsy and Rock would sound odd to you. The same for the other styles, If used to Jazz the country gypsy and rock styles sound odd.

But they are still using the same basic progression that is part of a common scale and "Guideline" of how to make the music flow....

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22 hours ago, kickingtone said:

No. It is preventing me from knowing how "well I think he can sing". You are the one equating that with "following autotune rules".

Nowhere have I said that a review is about knowing how well a singer is following whatever rules autotune uses.

By stating that pitch is such a crucial factor you are using a rule and you even complain that something is getting in the way of you hearing it.

And the link to the thread?

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43 minutes ago, MDEW said:

If all you ever heard was the basic "Country" chords then the Jazz Gypsy and Rock would sound odd to you. The same for the other styles, If used to Jazz the country gypsy and rock styles sound odd.

But they are still using the same basic progression that is part of a common scale and "Guideline" of how to make the music flow....

Different? Very probably. Odd? Not necessarily.

I certainly doubt I would be describing it as torture.

I like traditional sounds from around the world. The first time I hear a new genre, my most usual impression is that it sounds different or has a new quality. I am rarely cringing.

Organizing music into genres is fine. I just find extreme reactions (like the ones in the comment section of the video) to be a sign of narrow-mindedness, not musicality.

Being able to hear the difference is one thing. Becoming nauseous over it is another.

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