2023-10-07 05:30:09
COLCANOPA
“AI, a desirable future for music? », will question during a major debate the Marché des musiques nationaux (MaMA), a professional convention scheduled for October 11 to 13 in the Pigalle district, in Paris. With an underlying concern: « Could creators be dispossessed of their art or see it increased like never before? » This dilemma already characterizes the evolution that live music has undergone over the past fifteen years and which artificial intelligence can only accentuate: the erasure of human intervention in favor of software. In the most extreme case, stage presence can be reduced to its simplest expression: a microphone for the voice and, for any accompaniment, a small hand triggering sounds recorded from a laptop. The live experience can do without musicians, a dizzying paradox.
A taboo was transgressed without the public, apparently, being moved. In 1984, at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, Léo Ferré distinguished himself by singing on the orchestral tapes of his studio recordings, which caused consternation among his admirers – or admiration for this situationist gesture. Generalized on television, playback, a term which applies to lip synchronization but also to the use of a soundtrack, was unanimously considered a fraud on stage. A scandal, which could ruin a career. This was the case in 1989 for the Franco-German duo Milli Vanilli, victim of a technical accident during a concert in the United States. Its producer, Frank Farian, had to admit the deception: none of his protégés, dubbed by American vocalists, sang a single note.
Today, live vocal playback is still unacceptable. Theoretically, at least. It can indeed be constrained by the choreographic effort, stars like Michael Jackson and his sister Janet, Madonna or Britney Spears having shown the way. It is also common for a performer to add their timbre to recorded vocal layers. And harmonies – one or two voices – can still be generated automatically by an effects pedal.
Consequence of the home studio
But an article like the one Jon Pareles published in The New York Times in 1989 would no longer arouse any reaction, because what he denounced became the rule: this American critic was indignant at having heard drum sounds not played at concerts by the groups Bananarama and The Bangles, and keyboard sounds in this which concerns Depeche Mode. He recalled that, for economic reasons, disco singers were already performing in clubs with “only a microphone and a recorded tape” in the 1970s. And that, during a tour in 1978, the reputation of the British pop ensemble Electric Light Orchestra had been tarnished by orchestral playback. A promoter even filed a complaint in the United States.
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