Taylor, Shania, Vince, Elvis, The Shaftmen, Hank Sr, Waylon, who’s really singing? by john emms
VINCE GILL is known as being a great player and excellent country vocalist
Gill has also been quoted as being against the “whole auto-tune craze” that is affecting modern country music.
Hell what would have Hank Williams Sr, and good Ol’ Waylon Jennings thought of this madness
Fast forward to Taylor Swift’s big Grammy winning night. I was not alone with my unflattering commentary on Taylor Swift’s Grammy vocal performance. Many publications weighed in. Let’s chalk it up to a rough night. We have all had them.
So then does it really matter? Well yes. THE BEATLES USED THE IN HOUSE P.A AT SHEA STADIUM IN 1965 …WITH A CROWD OF 55,000…..George Jones, Roy Orbison and Ray Charles were some of the best singers ever. NO tricks..just sing
Taylor has the smarts and talent to learn from this. Some people have suggested that Swift was brave not to use auto-tune. I can tell you most of the performers I know and admire have to my knowledge not used the pitch correction device in the studio or in live performance.
Personally you can watch any of our Shaftmen live takes on youtube recorded with one camera and small microphone, and most of the time my voice is pretty stable. And I can tell you like most singers I have some pitch problems. For me it’s the emotion of the performance
Taylor Swift is the youngest person to ever win A Grammy for Album of the Year, and Heck maybe i’m off by one or two but Shania Twain has won 5 GrammyAwards. ELVIS PRESLEY WON ONLY 3 GRAMMY AWARDS..WOW..YOU SAY
The 2010 Grammy audience share was up, and that was with the censoring of a riveting show from Eminem, Lil Wayne and Drake.
What does all this say about the future of the industry To quote my friends. “Most of the buying consumer must be stupid”
I’ m going to go old school with Vince Gill on this one. WE ALL LOVE GREAT MUSIC..BUT LET’S GET BACK TO REAL SINGING AND REAL PLAYING
HECK, I don’t know if SHANIA has in the past or if she tours again will decide to use auto-tune or pitch correction.
I honestly don’t think she needs it. She started out like the rest of us. Little ol’ p.a. system with an old microphone handed down. If we can’t sing with the best gear in the world then maybe we should all get practicing .
JOHN EMMS..
VISIT JOHN..
http://www.johnemms.com
The Official Blog of The Shaftmen/our videos/text from john emms 
Couldn’t agree more John, There is a slew of “singers” out there who are making millions and they can’t hold a tune, and I don’t mean the classic singer/songwriters who get a pass on this (Waits, Young, Sexsmith, Dylan et al) and bands that refuse to Autotune their singers (Hip, OLP come to mind)I mean the products out there like Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber. Autotune is a tool that, when used correctly, can correct a note here and there to improve the sound and save the performance or some studio time, but it shouldn’t be the end all and be all. When will people come to their senses????
You might have got things down perfectly when
it comes to the techniques of singing itself, but even a golden voice can be ruined by bad posture and less than confident on stage presence.
Putting customers on hold or shuffling them off to automatic answering services
or programs just isn’t popular. Top of the list:
12 lessons from reality TV in 2012.