Some time ago at work, breakroom talk with a friend led to a discussion about Auto-Tune, a technology I oddly had never heard of before but had suspected for some time. Auto-Tune is a pitch-correcting technology used to analyze and correct the pitch of a tone that would otherwise be considered off-key. From what I’ve read, it can be used in recordings to add an obvious digitized effect to vocals (think Cher’s “Believe” as an example), but can also be applied more subtly such that it might not really be noticed (minor pitch correction in a live performance, for example).

This is something that at first glance seems like a great idea. I mean, why not use Auto-Tune all the time? That way you can ensure that your vocal performances are spot-on perfect all the time.

I thought about this for a while and wondered if this would really be such a good idea. With this in mind, I started paying closer attention to music as I was listening to it and started noticing the vocals. I’d ask myself, “Does this artist sing on tune all the time? If Auto-Tune were applied to this vocalist would he/she sound different?”

The most important question was the follow-on: “Would the application of Auto-Tune to this vocalist improve the song or have the opposite effect?”

Here’s some artists that I thought would probably sound quite a bit different with Auto-Tune used:

  • Brian Johnson (AC/DC)
  • David Lee Roth (Van Halen)
  • Bono (U2)
  • Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden)
  • Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam)
  • Bob Marley
  • Dave Mustaine (Megadeth)
  • Geddy Lee (Rush)
  • Axl Rose (Guns N’ Roses)
  • Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin)
  • Joe Elliott (Def Leppard)
  • Kurt Cobain (Nirvana)

You’ll notice that these are among the most influential musical artists of the past 40 or so years of rock music. If you are familiar with the artists, think about the music they make and the sound of the vocals. Try to imagine what those vocals would sound like if they were sung with a perfectly clear voice that is always on-key.

I think you would agree with me that using Auto-Tune on the vocals for these artists would have completely ruined their signature sound. U2’s “With or Without You” wouldn’t have sounded so yearningly desperate if Bono had been precisely on tune the whole time. The vocals may have been technically perfect, but it would have completely ruined the song.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the imperfect vocals of these artists is part of what makes them special.

Can you imagine if instead these bands had been formed by an executive committee of businesspeople? Can you imagine if every recording had to be approved by this committee? “Mr. Vedder, you are still not 100% on-key during the chorus of ‘Evenflow.’ I know you are trying to sing that with emotion, but we need you to do that on-key. If you cannot do that, we’re going to have to find someone else who can.” And then you’d have Pearl Jam without Eddie Vedder, which would be … what exactly? Anything noteworthy at all?

The application of Auto-Tune to “improve” vocal performance is simply one example of something we see so much lately in America. We have this belief that there is a clear definition of what “excellence” is in any particular realm, and that anything failing to meet that definition is substandard. When it comes to vocals, for example, singing perfectly on pitch meets that definition; anything else would fail to meet the definition. What we miss here is that doing this also has the effect of causing everything to be the same. Auto-Tune may correct pitch, but it also has the effect of removing some of the distinction from the way I would sing (which isn’t good, by the way).

Look through the examples again and I think you will agree that there is value in the distinction and the uniqueness.

Another example of this is in contemporary corporate-America’s valuation of “diversity.” Modern companies, especially big ones, make a big deal about valuing diversity, but this mostly has to do with avoiding discrimination: Valuing older and younger employees equally, valuing women and men equally, valuing different races equally, etc. But what it really means to value diversity is to value the things that make people unique and therefore give them unique value. If you don’t like Iron Maiden that’s fine, but to dislike Iron Maiden because of the way Bruce Dickinson sings is missing the point. That’s like saying you would like chocolate chip cookies if they didn’t have chocolate chips in them. Without chocolate chips, they may still be tasty, but they certainly aren’t chocolate chip cookies. It wouldn’t make sense to say you value the unique sound of Iron Maiden while simultaneously trying to get Bruce Dickinson to change how he sings, just as it doesn’t make sense to say you value the unique talents and contributions I bring while simultaneously pushing me to change to become like everyone else.

Everyone has unique value, unique talents, unique abilities that set them apart from everyone else. People naturally try to make order and sense in the world by understanding and categorizing things. The effect of this is that society is always trying to tell you to suppress your unique value and conform. “Don’t sing like Brian Johnson,” they’d say. “He sings terribly and he’ll never be successful that way. If you can’t sing with feeling and also sing on key, you need to learn to suppress the emotion because people like their music to be on key.”

All evidence to the contrary.

I’ll sum it up with this video featuring Steve Vai. Steve Vai is a guitar virtuoso and one of my guitar heroes. Vai’s style is not exactly traditional and so he’s not so popular as, say, Eddie Van Halen. Steve Vai could have modified his style some 25 years ago when he was playing with David Lee Roth or Whitesnake to try to make himself more mainstream and thus more palatable an artist. But doing so would have also made him not become the marvel that Steve Vai is today. Instead, he remained true to himself and became a truly unique, fascinating, and marvelous guitar virtuoso, and his impact on music and the music industry is certainly much greater than it would have been otherwise.

My favorite quote from the video: “I have strengths, and I have weaknesses. I don’t work on my weaknesses. I ignore them, and I cultivate my strengths.”

Enjoy.