Multimodal Final Project

Links for the two songs of our Multimodal Project comparing the natural voice to one altered by Auto-Tune.

Natural:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhnoQ_Op7pY

Auto-Tuned:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRAZb0WHTak

Music We Listen To

Who is your favorite popular music artist? Lady Gaga (she's mine!), Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber (I hate him.)? Well chances are, your favorite music artist uses audio editing software to make their songs sound better. These programs alter the singers' voices to erase any flaws or mishaps in their singing. So now, everything is skewed. Are we listening to the actual artists? Or are we listening to their studios? Maybe the music industry has just become a competition between the editing softwares of all the artists rather than the actual voices of the artists themselves. Why do they all use Auto-Tune? Yes it makes them sound better. But doesn't it make them superficial? Why don't we just listen to a robot? I'm sure there will be program out some day that allows one to choose the notes of the song and one can literally SPEAK the words and the program alters the pitch of the singer to make it sound they are singing perfectly without sounding like a robot. What will we do if this happens? Embrace it and indulge in it as we have to technology in the past? Or will we reject it and enjoy REAL music with REAL voices.

Auto-Tune takes away the authenticity of music. Some of those who are famous for being music artists cannot really even sing! Miley Cyrus was only made popular because of her father and her fame from the show Hannah Montana. SHE HAS A RASPY MAN VOICE! I have seen videos of Selena Gomez singing live in the studio and it is not pretty. Check out my Multimodal Project to see the effects of Auto-Tune. True artists true talent is diminished because of editing softwares such as Auto-Tune. For example, Lady Gaga is a BRILLIANT artist, but several people think she is just famous because of catchy beats and edited singing. Go watch a video on YouTube in which Gaga sings acoustically! OR go watch the talent show video of Stephanie Germanotta, now known as Lady Gaga. She is a true artist but people undermine her talent by saying she is not a true artist because she uses voice editing software. She doesn't need it, but I think she only uses it to keep up with the other "artists"; everyone needs to make money, and society today seems to like Auto-Tune and the like.

Auto-Tune Causes Loss of Emotion

So I did my Multimodal project on Auto-Tune with my group. My group did a cover of Bruno Mars's "Just the Way You Are", then applied Auto-Tune to it and analyzed the differences in the sounds. Of course, Auto-Tune just made it sound more robotic but altered the pitch of our voice to hit the right notes. We weren't the greatest or most experienced users of Auto-Tune, so we weren't able to alter the settings so that the program tuned our voices smoothly. This is why it sounds like a robot. Rather than a gradual change of notes, it is a sharp distinct change, making it obvious that Auto-Tune was used.

Now, while examining the effects of Auto-Tune, we found it did several things. First, it corrected the pitch of our voices to the notes in the scale that were closest to the ones we sang. So, technically, it improved our singing. On the other hand, the program made us sound like a robot, with distinct, sharp changes in notes rather than the smooth change as a singer exhibits. This took away the feeling of emotion in the song. The song sounds better and is easier to listen to, but the emotional effects brought about from the natural voice were no longer there. This caused the music simply to sound good to the listener rather than to bring out any emotion in the listener. Isn't the point of music to bring out emotion in the listeners? If someone were singing a song specifically for you, wouldn't you rather have someone sing their best with emotion and a few off-key notes than a technically perfect song but that sounds like a robot?

Second Skin

What is so addicting about MMORPGs that makes people want to pay $15 dollars a month to waste 12 hours a day playing them? Maybe it's because they allow people to make a new life for themselves online because they do not truly have one in real life. Maybe it's because they allow people to relax and relieve stress from the real world. Maybe it's because they allow people to be whoever they want to be online without judgment. But it's just a huge cycle. People play games because they do not succeed in real life, and they don't succeed because they play games. For example, in the documentary "Second Skin", there are several people who become poor because of playing World of Warcraft. They need to feel successful so they start playing the game, but this causes them to pay a monthly subscription and takes all of their time playing the game rather than going out to find a job. Because they do not have a job, they continue to play the game. It's a big cycle.

How about rather than playing the video game, they go out and find a job? Just take a couple of days to find a decent job, and then, they could actually feel successful about their real lives. Because of this, they wouldn't even need the game to make them feel better. Rather than chasing virtual goals and achieving virtual tools and valuables, they could chase and reach real life goals and actual valuables. They could make a living for themselves and live in luxury.

On the other hand, MMORPGs could be a good thing for some people. For example, handicapped people who stand NO chance in the real world because of a disease they have no control over have reason to play these games. They actually get a chance to live the lives they can not ever possibly live in the real world. They can talk, walk, run, jump, sing, be heroic, be anything they want to be online. Maybe they can't do these things in real life and thus, their playing of MMORPGs may be justified in my opinion. Playing video games can be good or bad; it's just HOW and WHY people play them that matters.

Video Game Addiction

I used to play Halo 3 a TON. You could say I was addicted. I played from right when I got home from school until about 9pm and then picked it up around 12am and played until 3am. I was completely addicted to the game. I say that I have played about 10,000 matches in my lifetime of Halo. With each match being about 10 minutes, thats about 69 played days of video games. I never even realized. By now, I've stopped playing games so that statistic was over a period of 3 years! Maybe I'm not as addicted as other people on other games, but MY addiction got in the way of my progress with things more important to me. When I started playing, I began to put off my homework and studying for tests. I had already been procrastinating so I procrastinated even more after I started playing Halo. It had even run into my piano practice time so I had to really crack down and practice about 3 hours per day over the last 3 weeks before my big auditions that year! I began to be secluded from my family and my friends. Sometimes, I rejected an invitation to hang out with friends just so I could play Halo alone.

What is so addicting about Halo? Well in Halo 3, there is a ranking system based on player skill, rather than on time. For example, in Call of Duty, a player gets points for every game played and after a certain number of points, he ranks up a level. But Halo 3 has a different ranking system in which skill level cannot be improved by just sheer play time. In Halo 3, one must be good and win a certain number of matches in a row to prove to the system that he is good enough to be given the next skill level number. In Halo 3, the highest skill level possible was 50, and I was not going to stop playing until I got there. Eventually, after years of playing, I got good enough to be a level 50 but the game was still addicting. Maybe it's because it makes me feel successful and good about myself when I win a game and I have a positive kill-death spread. Maybe it's because it makes me feel good when I beat another team of players. Maybe I like the team-oriented aspect of the game, which must be seen by all team members to truly succeed consistently. Maybe I kept playing because I wanted to achieve the status of being the highest level because I HAD to be the best in everything that I do.

Halo really took its toll on me. I used to be ranked #1 in high school, but because of Halo, I made a low A in U.S. History and eventually that came to bite me in the rear because I graduated as the Salutatorian, #2. It also hindered my piano development and if I had not played Halo, I probably would be a lot further in my piano education. Playing Halo might have made me less social as well. I might have only learned to communicate to people online rather than people in real life. I have always been a shy person, and Halo only decreased my development when it came to that. I stopped playing Halo cold turkey at the beginning of my freshman year of college because my Xbox was left to my little brother at home. I can tell a huge difference in my life. I study a ton more than I would if I still played. I have joined a fraternity to increase my social life and to develop contacts for future jobs and whatnot. I have become more active physically rather than just sitting there playing Halo. Overall, playing video games and being addicted to Halo hindered me, and now that I've stopped playing, I have become more successful and healthy in things I wish to achieve.

Just Dance 2

Over Thanksgiving break, I played the Just Dance 2 video game on the Wii console. Before this, I thought that all those ads telling people they could exercise via video games were not true and just false advertisements. When I played Just Dance 2, I found myself sweating and breathing hard. Playing the game was exactly like dancing (who would've guessed). So playing this game has changed my whole perception on exercise via video games. Also, I think this game is good because it allows people to practice dancing in the privacy of their own home so they will be more likely to dance in the outside world. This will allow people to be more social and get more in shape, but only if used correctly. If people just stay inside all day and never go outside of the house to dance, then this game will only help them physically but not really socially. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that technology can be useful or harmful depending on how one uses it. If one ONLY uses technology and does not apply it to the outside world, it is harmful in that it can cause people to be less social and even lazy. But if one uses technology to ENHANCE one's outside interaction, then technology can be a very good thing.