Would you pay for a Concert if the Singers were miming?

[Spinner72]

I'm a bit lost as to the point you're trying to make.

 

TOTP is a good example as it has always been bands miming to their singles, so if you were to get a ticket to go, you wouldn't expect anything else. If you happen to be there when one of the rare live performances happen, all the better.

 

The fact is, due in no small part to youtube etc, the live music scene has never been better. People go to hear what they like, irrespective if it has been mass marketed X-Factor style or someone doing a simple recording in their bedroom.

[unstman100]

Spinner72 said ' I'm a bit lost as to the point you're trying to make. '

 

The point I am trying to make, albeit serving a different commercial need, is counterfeit goods is no different to this of creating music via false pretences or gaining commercially by deception of the performance being conducted and justified under the guise of ' entertainment '.

 

Its an act of fraud no matter how much you butter it up or attempt to justify it. Yes, using technology as a means of helping you in terms of the tune structure (instrumental) is acceptable to a degree.......... but miming to a pre-recorded voice no matter what guise it goes under in terms of its function should not be allowed.

 

A person singing on stage and charging you to listen to them should be singing....this should be the basic criteria of any musical performance which involves singing. If dance routines or prancing around on the stage cannot be done because the said performer(s) cannot sustain a singing voice (if indeed they can sing in the first place?) get rid of it.........don't justify such physical activity by letting them mime. Image should never ever take precedence over musical ability......whether this be instrumental or singing...period.

 

Ever since the time technology advanced to a level where it, in some cases, superseded musicians, image has replaced this aspect of music where instruments are either few and far between or are not required in terms of a so-called stage/concert performance......this is fundamentally wrong regardless what spoon fed media hyped up justification being used to allow such a blatant act of deception to take place.

 

Music is about the beauty and art of sound......NOT.....Image or whether a person(s) looks good......but performs fraudulently, musically.

[Spinner72]

Sorry, still lost.

 

I just don't see where the idea of "deception" or "fraud" comes from. Since the early days of opera it has been normal for a "secondary" singer (there will be a proper name, I'm not that clued up on the classical genre) to sing a leads part should they engage in an intensive dance sequence.

 

There is nothing fraudulent about it, it is just the way a show is written/choreographed.

 

Take Queen, for example, they were and still are one of the biggest live acts ever, yet they use(d) backing tracks regularly. Have they been committing fraud all these years?

[Ghostrider]

^^ I would presume the "fraud"/"deception" angle comes from the fact that if a show is "live", its not (in some folks minds anyway) unreasonable to expect that everything you see and hear is actually being produced there and then.

 

You don't go all that far back until you hit a time when there was no other option than for an artiste to be doing everything you saw and heard at a live show for real, the "deception" angle starts to rear its head as at no point did anyone ever stand up and announce that as of whenever pre-records etc where now "officially" considered an "okay" component of a live show, rather they have been included by "stealth". Whether there was intent to keep it "hush hush" for fear of a backlash, or whether it was accidental as a side effect of simply making use of evolving and advancing technologhy as it became available, is rather academic.

 

"Fraud" begins to play in to it when someone pays to attend a live show, in the belief (through either ignorance or personal expectation) that everything they will see and hear is being produced there and then, only to find out when they attended that a proportion of what they are seeing and hearing is actually pre-record.

 

I'm not sure I personally subscribe to the "desception"/"fraud" camp, but I do subscribe to teh camp who believes the music industry have failed to keep their customers fully informed about what exactly it is they are paying their money for, both in general and in show specific terms.

 

Yes, a lot of folk know pre-records have been used to one degree or another for decades, and a lot of folk can tell quite quickly from looking at any performance of any artiste what is fully live and what is pre-record. They pays their money for what they believe is worth it. However, a hell of a lot of folk don't know much if anything about pre-records and their use, nor would they have a clue if they were in the audience what was live and what was recorded....until the singer gets a violent sneezing bout, or a guitar self destructs, yet the vocal or guitar line continue, as they were being mimed. That is when the folk who don't know the full story of what they are paying for start to riot, as they don't know what was and wasn't genuinely live, and you get the mutterings of, "I cudda gotten dir CD aff ebay fur £2, instead o' peyin £20 heer, and hit widda been as "live" is dis....." Those are the folk who (either through ignorance and/or inadequate information being put forth by the music industry, or because they have expectations that unless specifically informed otherwise is WYSIWYG) feel they have been scammed, conned or otherwise misled in to paying for more than they got.

[unstman100]

Spinner72 said ' Sorry, still lost '.

 

' miming to a pre-recorded voice ' - Are you implying or saying that this behaviour, in terms of a live performance, is perfectly acceptable and is not committing fraud or deception to those people paying to see a performance which involves singing live ?

 

If Queen were using pre-recorded instrumental backing tracks, fair enough if its a technical issue........but if Freddy Mercury and the other singers within Queen were just miming to the songs they had previously created......you are saying this would be acceptable on the basis of you seeing them for real.....regardless of their behaviour when doing a concert?

 

Please differentiate between instrument(s) sounds (acoustic or electronic) and this of the human voice.

[Shetland_boys]

We saw Britney Spears a few years ago. she mimed the whole thing, but it was a great show and she is hot so it was ok, we r going to see her again in November so fingers crossed she sings live but i doubt it! lol

[Spinner72]

Spinner72 said ' Sorry, still lost '.

 

' miming to a pre-recorded voice ' - Are you implying or saying that this behaviour, in terms of a live performance, is perfectly acceptable and is not committing fraud or deception to those people paying to see a performance which involves singing live ?

 

Ah, OK.

 

In short, yes, I don't see why it should be unacceptable SO LONG AS it is that persons voice, and that is they way they usually perform. Dolly Parton, for example - it is common knowledge some of the material is pre-recorded, but people still love the show, and rightly so.

 

Likewise my use of Queen as an example - so many of their hits had many layers of vocals, all sung by them, Bohemian Rhapsody being a great example.

 

In that case, I would much rather hear the original Queen backing track recorded by them, than a bunch of other backing singers singing live.

 

The fact is, it totally depends on the show. If you went to see Susan Boyle, you would expect her to sing live, as thats the core of what she does.

 

But, as above, if you go to see Britney Spears full arena show, whether she is singing live or not takes a back seat to the production as a whole. It need not impact upon ones enjoyment one little bit.

 

Then there is the fact that almost all who use pre-recorded tracks have recorded them specifically for the show in question. There would be no other way of hearing them, you can't go out and buy the CD etc. The performance can only be heard live...

 

So. No simple yes/no answer. Depends entirely on the performer and the context.

 

Personally, I would probably walk out after a short time if an act was clearly miming. But I wouldn't for one second feel I had been a victim of fraud.