I don't hate Auto-Tune per se but rather the mentality it seems to bring out:
'Pitch' being reduced to a computer-like on/off thing. Naturally a big reason is that a lot of singers today just don't cut it, being a star or in some ridiculous 'reality' TV show seems to be more important than the ART of singing and music-making.
IMO, there is a kind of 'circle' around a note where you can be slightly higher or lower than the 'perfect center'. If you go further out, it will be considered out-of-tune. Vibrato/Melismatisms come into play.
A great musician can play with this 'circle' to create tension.
Naturally this depends on the style and setting and once you REALLY start to think about it you end up discusssing things like 'equal-tempered' scales against 'natural' ones,etc
Naturally this is formed by your listening habit and if your diet is AutoTuned radio pop then most likely most music from say Frank Sinatra will sound out of tune to
you.
Listen to the great ones: Miles, Coltrane, the Indian masters, B.B King, Sinatra, etc and realize that they all had their own approach to pitch. That's why you recognize Miles Davis within one note. I'm sure his stuff will be considered 'out-of-tune' when put under the Auto-Tune microscope.
The quest to have everything 'in tune' and 'in time' leads to a most saddening state: BOREDOM. SQUARENESS.
Hearing some older stuff these days very often gives me the feeling of 'non-restraint'. Getting out of that stupid straighjacket so-called 'perfection' .
And where is plain old PRIDE in this? If I were a singer, I would most certainly aspire to hit and reach my own notes.
How can younger artists progress when they are 'made perfect' from the beginning with no room given to improve?
Andi
www.doorknocker.ch