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Ask Slashdot: Will Technology Disrupt the Song?
An anonymous reader writes: The music industry has gone through dramatic changes over the past thirty years. Virtually everything is different except the structure of the songs we listen to. Distribution methods have long influenced songwriting habits, from records to CDs to radio airplay. So will streaming services, through their business models, incentivize a change to song form itself? Many pop music sensations are already manufactured carefully by the studios, and the shift to digital is providing them with ever more data about what people like to listen to. And don't forget that technology is a now a central part of how such music is created, from auto-tune and electronic beats to the massive amount of processing that goes into getting the exact sound a studio wants.
No. No it won't.
I wouldn't say technology has made music un-singable. Yeah, there are some tracks out there with vocals layered using a sampler. But you've had layered vocals since the dawn of time in the form of duets and harmony singing in larger groups. Effects like chorus and reverb can be pretty much ignored when singing - lots of them are just used to replicate the sound of a particular physical environment. Even autotune is mostly used to correct singers who can't hold a specific pitch, not to extend their vocal range or otherwise make it something that can't be sung. Complaining that you can't make the sound coming out of your mouth sound identical to what you hear on a record is a bit of a ridiculous comparison... it's a bit like saying you can't sing Yesterday unless your voicebox is an exact 1:1 mold of Paul McCartney's.