brettworks

thinking through music

voice

  • From The Hard Drive: Backing Up Old Voices

    This is supposed to be a funny post. As I was dutifully backing up and copying thousands of old files from a dusty desktop computer on New Year’s (I’m preparing to bury the computer in my closet—which, by the way, is starting to resemble one of those small cars out of which an implausible number Continue reading

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  • On The Sound Of Your Voice

    “Welcome to Times Square, Crossroads of the World. Have a great evening, and remember, whatever your final destination, happiness is the way.” — voice of 7 Train operator, July 16, 2011 So it was the other day as I was getting off the 7 train at Times Square that I noticed the train conductor’s announcement Continue reading

  • On The Wellness Of Voice: Sounding Om

    Yoga class. The lights are off, the dark space peaceful, and we sit quietly on our mats, legs crossed, hands prayed in front of our chests — Namaste. With one unison breath we chant Om on a single unison pitch– centering and togetherness through collective sound. We’re a choir of Om. But there’s a problem. Continue reading

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  • On The American Singing Voice: American Idol, Glee and The Sing-Off

    If you’ve been paying attention to popular TV shows you might have noticed how important the singing voice is to the North American popular culture moment we’re in.  Three shows in particular highlight the singing voice: American Idol (Fox), Glee (Fox), and The Sing-Off (NBC).  All of these shows remind us how powerful the singing voice is as Continue reading

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  • The Disguised Musical Voice

    Recently I blogged about Auto Tune and its magical pitch-correcting abilities.  While the post was ostensibly about a musical technology, its subtext was of course all about the human voice, specifically the delight we take in altering how our voices can sound.  Auto Tune is one way to do it, but that’s really just the Continue reading

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  • The Sound Of Auto Tune

    You know the Auto Tune sound when you hear it: it sounds artificial, electronic, not quite human enough, too perfect.  Auto Tune is everywhere today, from TV commercials to hip hop to country music.  It’s the Photoshop of the musical world. The technology was conceived by Andy Hildebrand, an engineer for Exxon who developed methods Continue reading

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