In a message dated 12/8/2001 9:17:14 PM Eastern Standard Time,
lloyd.hanson@n... writes:
lloyd.hanson@n... writes:
<< Perhaps we will return to the human qualities of the voice be they
developed for the large stage or for the living room but be they a
natural expression of human vocal potential and limits and not a
product of an electronic process. >>
ah lloyd,
mark this moment as 'that time you and i were in complete agreement'. i
have a student who is a rock and roller. when he first started with me, it
was scary how bad he was. to his credit, he worked very hard to get not
only bearable but, to a point where people actually hire him to sing in their
establishments. recently, he has become enamored with very high tech
recording equipment. he made a recording of a couple of his songs and i
didn't think he sounded to good on them. i tried to convince him to redo
them but he said something like 'they haven't been remastered yet'. i
thought 'how's that gonna help you?'. when they came back from the
engineer, i was horrified by what i heard. the tuning had been fixed and
everything else had been jazzed up. to me, this is a gross misuse of
technology that should only be used to bring that 'face to face, alone
together' experience to a large audience.
i have a great appreciation for singers who let their 'ugly' voices be
heard (ugly by 'consensus reality' standards, that is). bob dylan is the
first name that comes to mind. elaine stritch singing 'the ladies who
lunch' from 'company' is one of my favorite performances of all time. she
sang it in that pbs broadcast of 'ladies of broadway' (i think that was
title) amidst all these younger, pretty voiced girls but, she sang with
reckless abandon. her singing was about the subject of the song, not her
vanity. to me, this is how a microphone should be used.
tony bennett, in concert, always puts the microphone down for 'fly me to
the moon'. in hearing him sing this way, it is clear that he only uses a
mic for the purpose of removing the distance. ella fitzgerald and mel torme
did things no engineer would ever think of, same with paul mccartney. i am
sure we could all think of singers who use amplification in the way we are
talking about and not in the way we are dreading.
yes, yes, yes.
mike
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