Is There Such Thing As "Cheating?"

  • Thread starter Thread starter Melvin McSnatch
  • Start date Start date
kidkage said:
It's a strange thing for me to try to figure out.
For instance, I don't think electronic producers are cheating, but I do think people like beyonce are cheating.
Click to expand...

I agree with this sentiment. One expects that a singer should be able to sing. That's the minimum criteria for the job, I think.
 
I don't think the use of technology to produce/create a recording is cheating. I think most people who record/produce have a musical vision (and often an obligation) to present a finished product that is "good" (in tune, consitent tempos, etc. etc.).

I do think that "artists" who depend on technological "editing" to correct their errors (singing out of tune, failure to maintain consistent tempos, etc.) are cheating - but, they are only cheating themselves.

I think any musician/vocalist should strive to be the best they can be, to learn how to utilize their instrument(s) of choice effectively and when possible, flawlessly. Failing to do that (and then depending on an enginneer/producer to "fix it in the mix") - is an insult to the music, to the instriment and to all the musicians who spend countless hours trying to be the best they can be (without "cheating")
 
grimtraveller said:
Hmm, something has pushed your rap buttons ! That just seemed like an excuse to have a pop at rap music. And unwittingly, you've hit upon the wheel on which this debate turns. Yours is the purist view, which unfortunately, like alot of purist views says more about the holder of the view than the actual subject !
Much of what you said reads like what people in the early 50s said about black blues, what people in the latter 50s said about rock and roll, what people {jazzers included} in the early 60s said about free jazz, what people in the mid 60s said about the Rolling Stones, what many in the late 60s said about the avant garde and the synthesizer, what many in the early 70s said about Zeppelin and Sabbath type heavy rock, what many musicians and commentators in the mid to late 70s said about punk, what many in the early 80s said about digitally recorded stuff..........
THAT'S NOT MUSIC !!

But it was, you know.





By the way, even a spoken voice has pitch.That's how a blind person or someone listening to the radio or some poetry can work out how emotive someone else is being.
Click to expand...

Haha, fair enough... I guess it's obvious I'm not a huge fan of the whole hip-hop/rap genre, but I guess I'm just a crotchety old man at heart... xD
 
I think rap and hip hop are music although I don't care for them.

But I do NOT consider a singer a musician.
Some singers are also musicians but I get tired of seeing people who know nothing about music ...... they just can sing .. and they're called musicians. To me they're not.

They are singers ..... vocalists ..... people who get a full cut even though they don't help with the load in/load out.
 
Lt. Bob said:
I think rap and hip hop are music although I don't care for them.

But I do NOT consider a singer a musician.
Some singers are also musicians but I get tired of seeing people who know nothing about music ...... they just can sing .. and they're called musicians. To me they're not.

They are singers ..... vocalists ..... people who get a full cut even though they don't help with the load in/load out.
Click to expand...

^ Deserves a repost!

Like Adele.
People love her.
I'm not "hating", but she doesn't write her music, and probably barely writes her lyrics.

I've also never really looked at Djs as musicians. I'm not talking about electronic producers that "DJ" with their own stuff.
I'm talking those club guys that just take other artists two tracks and mix them together.
I'm not taking away from what they do. There is skill involved in it, and they're certainly artists in that they create something new, but I don't think theyre musicians. They're DJs.
 
kidkage said:
^ Deserves a repost!

Like Adele.
People love her.
I'm not "hating", but she doesn't write her music, and probably barely writes her lyrics.

I've also never really looked at Djs as musicians. I'm not talking about electronic producers that "DJ" with their own stuff.
I'm talking those club guys that just take other artists two tracks and mix them together.
I'm not taking away from what they do. There is skill involved in it, and they're certainly artists in that they create something new, but I don't think theyre musicians. They're DJs.
Click to expand...
I agree with this ...... DJs do some interesting stuff for sure and I don't have that particular skill but I, personally, can't call them musicians.
That doesn't mean I'm hating on them ...... I just have my definition for what I consider to be a musician.
 
Lt. Bob said:
They are singers ..... vocalists ..... people who get a full cut even though they don't help with the load in/load out.
Click to expand...

I need to post this to every band page of every local band ever, brb.
 
Yeah....but the flip side of that is that it's usually all about the singers, and that's whey they feel they don't have to help with loading in. :D

I always preferred being in a band with NO dedicated lead singer, where everyone sang and played...but there was one band where the lead singer always helped with stuff, and wasn't a total prima donna.
 
I figured 'what the hell' and just went ahead and became the singer but that didn't work.
Now I live in Fl where the only way to play 4 or 5 gigs a week is to do a single so I still have to do the load in/out!

:rolleyes:
 
Just like Harmonica players. They carry in/out what instrument they play! :rolleyes:
 
I have mixed feelings about vocalists. Since I consider myself a songwriter (who works with publishers and/or song pluggers to get my songs published and placed) I'm very dependent on vocalists, both to demo my songs, and to record my songs and hopefully sell enough recordings to generate some income.

However, as a band guy who has hauled gear in an out of thousands of gigs - I do not enjoy working with vocalists (in particular female vocalists). Having been in or subbed with more than 100 bands and working with a lot of lead vocalists - I can honestly say I've never work with a vocalist (male or female) who carried their fair share of gear or who didn't bring waaaaay too much ego and/or drama to the band.

That being said, I have worked with vocalists who had a fair degree of music theory knowledge, etc. who I would consider to be musicians - although the vast majority of vocalists I've worked with had no musical knowledge and could not even understand what a harmony a 3rd above the melody meant.
 
Lt. Bob said:
I do NOT consider a singer a musician.


They are singers ..... vocalists .....
Click to expand...
I take a somewhat different tack on this. I consider singers/vocalists as musicians and I consider instrumentalists as musicians. I look at it as them both being involved in the creation and/or performance of music. They just happen to contribute different elements to that music. So to me, both groups are musicians.
Some DJs might be musicians but to me they are no more intrinsically a musician than an engineer or producer is.
Although they might be ! :D
 
And then there are Bass Players...........
 
bouldersoundguy said:
Recording is cheating. Using anything other than human voice and unmodified rocks and branches is cheating. Music theory is cheating. Electronic tuners are cheating. Opposable thumbs are cheating.

Either it's all cheating or none of it is. Any line you draw is arbitrary. People who ask questions like this are dependent on some "authority" to spoon feed them opinions. They are followers rather than leaders, consumers rather than creators, Billy Squier and Whitesnake rather than Led Zeppelin, every "grunge" band after Nirvana. It's never cheating when you make the rules. In music the closest thing to cheating is following the rules, but that is more laziness than cheating.

Permission to quote me in your blog is denied. That would be cheating.
Click to expand...

I think I understand why you say this, and I wish I had thought of it myself. Before there were instruments, we had rocks and sticks and voices. Then someone came along with a drum. The others looked at him and said, "That's cheating." We take it for granted now, but way back when the very first guitar was unveiled, that guitar was at that time considered "new technology." Was it cheating? Then someone built an amplifier. Is that cheating?

Similarly, what we now refer to as "new technology" someday wil be taken for granted and will never be thought of as cheating, rather it will simply be another tool or another instrument to master. I can't imagine a world without loud electric guitars, but to a cave man it would be cheating.

Einstein rules again.
 
Singers are musicians. Their voice is their instrument. Not everyone can pull off a great vocal performance (AutoTune notwithstanding). Any singer worth their salt will have practiced hard like any other musician.

Why not ask the singer to help load in and out? Just because they don't personally use a lot of gear doesn't mean they don't need that gear to be present to do their jobs. A band should be all for one and one for all. If there are ego conflicts over something trivial like hauling gear, there are probably other more dire personality issues within the group.
 
how many singers does it take to change a light bulb?

Just one ..... they hold the bulb and let the world revolve around them.
 
diggy_dude said:
Singers are musicians. Their voice is their instrument. Not everyone can pull off a great vocal performance

.
Click to expand...
niether can every singer or even most of them.

And I did say some singers are musicians.
But I know singers who don't know jack about music and I don't consider them mucisicans.

But to be clear ..... I know guitar players I don't consider musicians.
 
I consider myself a crappy musician who can't sing. I have to use some pitch correction on a lot of my vocal tracks because I do not sing well. It's cheating to some extent but since I don't claim to be gifted in that particular area it makes no difference.

I want to create a song that sounds a particular way, I get it as far as I can with the instruments I have, at some point I let technology help me correct the parts of my performance that are not up to my expectations. It sounds better that way :)

Since these tools are available to any and all musicians you can not really call it cheating. If it was an Olympic event and one athlete was injecting adrenaline or something, that is cheating - if all the athletes are injecting the same thing then there is no unfair advantage, cheating implies an unfair advantage.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top