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On Dec 29, 2004, at 8:46 AM, Richard Zvonar wrote: > At 9:38 AM -0700 12/29/04, Krispen Hartung wrote: > Too bad we can't read this without signing up as a member for the New > York Times. Can you copy the text into an email to the group. Not > that > I can't signup, but it's sort of a pain for one article. > > Really? It wasn't that way previously. In fact, just last week I sent > TImes links to some people without problems. It's been that way for years, afaik > > Here's the text: > > > Put Your Voice Where Your Mouth Is > By GARY GIDDINS > > Published: December 29, 2004 > > > ASHLEE SIMPSON got caught with her microphone down on "Saturday Night > Live" in October, and five weeks later, on Dec. 5, "Good Morning > America," which had been especially gleeful in its post-mortem of the > debacle, presented Lindsay Lohan in a "live singing debut"- > lip-syncing just like Ms. Simpson. Good thing this was a slow news > year so that the press could pay suitable attention to a cultural > issue that has shocked many Americans over the age of 16. Forget the > occupation of Iraq, the burgeoning debt, the war over values, and the > passion of the Christ: this was the year we were obliged to face up to > the fact that show business is show business. > > Among other performers accused of moving their lips while a machine > does the labor are Britney Spears, Luciano Pavarotti, Shania Twain, > Beyoncé and Madonna. (One person who won't be accused of lip-syncing > is Kevin Spacey, but everyone who has seen "Beyond the Sea" wishes he > had.) As for performers who sing in tandem with prepared tapes or > backup tracks, this page could no more contain their number than it > could that of film actors with lasered body parts. It's a wonder > anyone bothers to deny it. Back in February it was reported that fans > of Ms. Spears prefer her to lip-sync - despite her denials of the > practice - because they expect flawless digitalization when they pay > serious money for a concert. Besides, as Ms. Simpson complained to > Katie Couric on "Today," it's not like she engaged in anorexia or > wardrobe malfunction. > > Indeed, the worse thing she did, beyond displaying an inability to > ad-lib and the childlike inclination to blame others (many others) for > her mishap, was to reveal that behind the curtain of contemporary show > business is a man with his finger on a button. The father of modern > entertainment was not P. T. Barnum, but Thomas Edison. We have been > living in an increasingly lip-synced world for some 75 years, and we > have yet to reach the bottom of a slippery slope. No profitable > advance in technology has ever vanished, and this one is here to stay > - along with miniature microphones on Broadway, fake laughter on > television, computer-generated images in the movies and Donald Trump. > You want reality? Go to a ballgame. Oh, right: forgot. > > Baby boomers who now shake their heads in dismay at what the world is > coming to grew up with lip-syncing. On Dick Clark's "American > Bandstand," there was no band and no bandstand, only the fear that the > record might skip while a grinning performer gyrated, his or her lips > moving as mutely as those of Steve Reeves in "Hercules." Old movies > that were then a routine part of network television offered jokes and > plots built on the deception of lip-syncing. In "Singin' in the Rain," > Jean Hagen is laughed out of the theater when the audience learns that > she is mouthing Debbie Reynolds. In "Road to Morocco," Bing Crosby, > Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour reluctantly lip-sync one another. > > Lip-syncing got its first and steadiest boost in Hollywood, shortly > after the introduction of sound: in 1929, MGM prerecorded an intricate > number, "The Wedding of the Painted Doll," for "The Broadway Melody." > Most sound engineers regarded dubbing as undignified; they argued that > music ought to be live, especially given the technological advances > that allowed them to capture vocal nuance. They were overruled by > three problems, all solved by lip-syncing. > > First, singing is physically constraining - a singer cannot maintain > pitch and vibrato while leaping around a stage - and movies depend on > movement. An example of that dilemma can be seen in the Marx Brothers > first feature film, "The Cocoanuts," in which the romantic couple > stops the film in its tracks in the seconds it takes them to draw a > breath or summon the proper vocal mask. > > The second problem was one of economics. By lip-syncing musical > numbers, the production did not have to install an orchestra on the > set or worry about repeated takes or the noise made by crane shots. In > 1930, Universal was frantic to stop the hemorrhaging of money in > completing its revue, "The King of Jazz," featuring the bandleader > Paul Whiteman. Whiteman suggested that the musical numbers be > prerecorded; that way carpenters could hammer new sets while > musicians, singers and dancers went through the motions on the ones > already built. > > The studios invented and resolved the third problem when they realized > that audiences didn't notice lip-syncing, let alone mind it. Producers > reasoned that if actors could lip-sync themselves, they could just as > easily lip-sync others. You want Rita Hayworth and Ava Gardner but > don't trust their singing? Bring in stunt-singers - like in "Singin' > in the Rain." During the same year Whiteman was filming "King of > Jazz," Duke Ellington introduced the song "Three Little Words" in the > film "Check and Double Check," but the three musicians he assigned the > vocal part weren't very good. So Ellington asked the director to hire > the Rhythm Boys (the trio, with Bing Crosby, that Whiteman made > famous). Since the film couldn't show a racially integrated ensemble - > white singers in a black band - the Rhythm Boys stood behind a curtain > with a microphone, while band members lip-synced them. How far a slide > down the slippery slope is it from Audrey Hepburn pretending to sing > in "My Fair Lady" to Milli Vanilli pretending to sing on their Grammy > winning 1990 album, "Girl You Know It's True"? > > In 1946, Crosby revolutionized the entertainment world when he walked > out on his NBC contract, which forbade him from prerecording his radio > show. Crosby reasoned that taping a program would allow him to edit > and perfect it; besides, he had prerecorded countless shows for the > troops overseas and no one complained. The networks argued that > audiences would never accept a canned show in a live medium. The > networks, of course, were wrong. On one occasion, Crosby's engineers > realized that the program was a minute or so short; one of them found > a piece of tape with applause and laughter and suggested editing it in > to fill the time. How far a slide is it from borrowed laughter to fake > laughter to fake audiences? > > Crosby, paradoxically, was one of the few musical film stars who > occasionally insisted on filming a song live. In Frank Capra's "Riding > High" of 1950, Crosby had a complicated number, "Sunshine Cake," > involving Colleen Gray, Clarence Muse and lots of physical business, > including Crosby playing spoons and Muse playing guitar. When you see > the film you are really seeing those performers singing and dancing. > Or are you? It happened that Muse could not play guitar or > convincingly fake it, so for the close-ups they brought in a > guitarist, Perry Botkin, and blacked up his hands. (Why they didn't > hire a black guitarist is another story.) How far a slide is it from > fake hands to a fake Fred Astaire vacuuming in a commercial to a fake > cast in "The Polar Express"? > > We protest that live performance is different, the last bastion of > reality. But we surrendered to illusion when we accepted amplification > as a substitute for natural acoustics long ago. A series of Memorex > ads proclaimed that we could no longer be certain if Ella Fitzgerald > or a mechanical device was popping glassware with high notes. For that > matter, we couldn't be certain if singing had anything to do with the > shattering of the glass because, after all, it was a TV ad. On > Broadway, singers are so over-microphoned that their disembodied > voices suffuse the theater, coming at you from every direction except > the singers' throats. If a modern-day Mary Martin were suffering from, > say, acid reflux, and were to expertly lip-sync her performance one > night, how many in the audience would know? Or care? > > Recording devices, along with every technological development since > the taming of electricity, frighten us. Like the aborigine who fears > his soul will be stolen by a photograph, we are made suspicious by the > dehumanizing potential of canned speech. Movies have long exploited > that mistrust. In Fritz Lang's "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse," made in > 1933, the eponymous megalomaniac uses a recording device in order to > pretend to be where he isn't. A decade later, Hitler did the same > thing. In the mid-40's, when Crosby was making headlines because of > his insistence on prerecording his radio show, a series of films > exploited the nefarious side of deceptive recordings - to advance > blackmail in "Nightmare Alley" and murder in "The Unsuspected" and > "The Falcon's Alibi." > > By that time, Hollywood was dubbing more than vocals; feet-dubbers > were also in demand, to match dance steps to scenes in which the > dancers were filmed without sound. One of the best of them, Miriam > Nelson, has told of dubbing the tap routine of a famous star with > famously bad timing. Ms. Nelson asked the director if she should > duplicate the star's taps or follow the music. The director told her > to follow the music, explaining that if the audience heard the correct > taps it would buy the illusion that the star was on point. > > We buy into worse illusions all the time. In the 1960's, it was a > matter of pride for musicians as varied as Vladimir Horowitz and Dave > Brubeck to refuse touch-ups on their live recordings. Does that kind > of pride even exist in a world of automatic pitch shifters that can > adjust off-key singing, and digital fixes that eliminate human error > and a bit of humanity itself? The world in which Al Jolson (who > lip-synced most of his film appearances in the 1930's and was himself > lip-synced in "The Jolson Story") had to reach the last row of the > highest balcony on lung power alone is long gone. Ladies and > gentlemen, Jolie has left the building. Cue Ashlee Simpson. > > Gary Giddins is the author, most recently, or "Weather Bird: Jazz at > the Dawn of its Second Century" and "Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of > Dreams." > > > -- > > > ______________________________________________________________ > Richard Zvonar, PhD > (818) 788-2202 > http://www.zvonar.com > http://salamandersongs.com > http://ill-wind.com