{"id":1326,"date":"2018-04-02T19:26:45","date_gmt":"2018-04-02T19:26:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevemillikan.com\/?page_id=1326"},"modified":"2018-04-02T19:58:21","modified_gmt":"2018-04-02T19:58:21","slug":"blog","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/stevemillikan.com\/index.php\/blog\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row iron_row_type=”full_width” iron_remove_padding_medium=”” iron_remove_padding_small=”” iron_overlay_pattern=”” iron_parallax=”” iron_bg_video=”” css=”.vc_custom_1522697674465{background-image: url(http:\/\/stevemillikan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/black-and-white-blog-business-261577.jpg?id=1335) !important;}”][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”400px”][vc_custom_heading text=”Blog” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:60|text_align:center|color:%23ffffff” fit_bg_text=”0″][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row iron_row_type=”in_container” iron_remove_padding_medium=”” iron_remove_padding_small=”” iron_overlay_pattern=”” iron_parallax=”” iron_bg_video=”” css=”.vc_custom_1522699098281{margin-top: 30px !important;margin-right: 90px !important;margin-left: 90px !important;border-bottom-width: 30px !important;}”][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”How Auto-Tune Destroyed Western Civilization
\n” fit_bg_text=”0″][vc_column_text]Auto-tune is a pitch correction program for music production. It\u2019s not the thing itself (cf. Kleenex, Band-Aids, or Coke in the southern climes). Many companies have software (or hardware) to accommodate the buyer, and although AutoTune is just one option available, it has become the generic name by which many refer to pitch correction.<\/p>\n

So whether it\u2019s Auto-tune or Melodyne or a lesser known competitor, we\u2019ll call it Auto-tune. It lives in most recording studios, both project and larger commercial facilities, and is employed in live situations by various artists. The most notable historical uses were by Cher on \u201cBelieve\u201d (the \u2018Cher\u2019 effect, vintage 1998) and T-Pain, who to some degree re-popularized it in the mid 2000\u2019s.<\/p>\n

I love\/hate auto-tune.\u00a0Love it as a tool to polish, fix, adjust, perfect, and generally improve performances. And I\u2019m personally fine with it when it\u2019s stylistically correct: rap, hip-hop, some pop, and so forth.<\/p>\n

HATE\/UNLIKE IT on so many levels. I unlike that the average listener doesn\u2019t understand that what is perceived as a typical vocal on a pop, country, or gospel tune is often a heavily altered version of the artist\u2019s actual performance. So a perfectly tuned vocal is the new normal, and real people singing tend to sound kind of pathetic unless they\u2019re quite good, or being run through auto-tune live.<\/p>\n

I hate that it sucks the life out of\u00a0 many vocal performances because the producer\/engineer, either by choice or out of ignorance, force the singer to get to the note they\u2019re going for before their voice has finished the natural pitch \u201cramp up\u201d (or occasionally down) to the note in question.<\/p>\n

Even nastier is the removal of pitch variation in the vibrato. Seriously. Vibrato is comprised of variation in the amplitude (loudness) of the voice (or instrument) and and usually an up and down movement in the pitch. When you use auto-tune to remove that pitch variation, the result is unnatural and musically inferior. Sadly, some producers and engineers don\u2019t have the ears to hear, the skill to carefully tune, or the budget to do it right.<\/p>\n

The most painful use of auto-tune in my experience is Alison Krauss. I wanted to cry the first time I heard a PBS special where her vocals had been flat-lined. Come on people, it\u2019s bluegrass, and Alison has a great voice and excellent pitch. But what was done to her voice was simply criminal. Now, the word on the street is that Alison is quite obsessive about her pitch, and wants it to be finely tuned. But somebody in the room should have pointed out that it was\u00a0destroying\u00a0the natural beauty of her voice.<\/p>\n

In the CCM realm, Mac Powell (Third Day), in the past, has had producers\/engineers completely mutilate and suck the life out of his vocals. He’s just one of a multitude of examples. They\u2019ve ruined his voice on a bunch of songs, and it really angers me, literally.<\/p>\n

A kissing cousin to the increasing tendency in some styles to use auto-tune is the Milli-Vanilli lip synching that pervades many live performances, as well as the use of instruments and vocals from recorded sources along with live elements. Adding extra instruments is interesting and debatable, but when there is a wall of perfect background vocals figuring prominently in the \u201clive\u201d mix, I\u00a0 start to squirm. Yeah, I know that\u2019s not the same as auto-tune, but it\u2019s a part of the same culture of expected perfection and glossy wonderfulness.<\/p>\n

I do have a glimmer of hope, as there is the occasional artist who rejects the whole technology driven concert thing and sing live without the aid of pitch correction or stacked back vocals. Kudos to you. And an encouragement to those who fake it simply to sell more records or to look and sound better to consider carefully the choices you\u2019ve made. Because if more of us were weary enough of this big polished thing, eventually we might replace the new normal with something a couple notches closer to the old normal (reality).<\/p>\n

Hey, cool idea, artists could learn to sing and play better, and perhaps in rare cases we could actually promote artists for their artistry and honest communication and not because they look\/sound like plastic replicas of idealized models (Stepford Wives anybody?). But that\u2019s another rant for anther day.<\/p>\n

Update<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 Adele\u2019s \u201cRolling In The Deep\u201d is a great example of a contemporary tune that doesn\u2019t employ auto-tune, and it\u2019s much stronger without it, even though you hear notes out of tune all over the place.<\/p>\n

FURTHER UPDATE: Just heard a Paul McCartney and band live concert in New York from 2011). Badly auto-tuned in places, and heavily auto-tuned throughout. Wish I could get my hands on the guy who convinced McCartney to have his vocals run through auto-tune ALL THE TIME. And on a setting that was too fast to boot. It was such a vibe killer. And it was the whole band \u2013 all singers were tuned all the time, at least from the time I tuned it to the concert.<\/em><\/p>\n

5 years ago I would have scoffed if you said McCartney would do this.\u00a0<\/em>Hey Paul McCartney, it sounds like absolute crap when you let them do this to your voice. Nothing could sound more unlike the art you and some other guys created a few decades ago. This sounded cheap, prefab, plastic, assembly line, pre-packaged, fake, lacking authenticity, and so forth.<\/em><\/p>\n

Philips Craig and Dean\u2019s recording of Wonderful Merciful Savior \u2013 a lovely worship song \u2013 was hurt pretty bad in places by auto-tune. This is a case where the machine sees a vibrato and thinks the singer meant to go to the note 1\/2 step lower, so the pitch has this unnatural warble for a fraction of a second early and often during held vibrato notes, especially when the tonic is held, because it\u2019s only 1\/2 step down to a note that is in the key of the song.<\/em>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row iron_row_type=”in_container” iron_remove_padding_medium=”” iron_remove_padding_small=”” iron_overlay_pattern=”” iron_parallax=”” iron_bg_video=”” css=”.vc_custom_1522698792027{margin-top: 30px !important;margin-right: 90px !important;margin-left: 90px !important;border-bottom-width: 30px !important;}”][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Forget The Church, Follow Jesus: The Gospel According to Andrew Sullivan
\n” fit_bg_text=”0″][vc_column_text]\u201cForget The Church, Follow Jesus\u201d by Andrew Sullivan is the featured cover story on the latest issue of Newsweek.\u00a0 He begins by revisiting Thomas Jefferson\u2019s shredding of the Bible. As you may recall, Jefferson famously extricated a few passages in the New Testament he felt conveyed the actual teachings of Jesus accurately; these became his new improved Bible. He referred to his new document as the \u201cdiamonds,\u201d and the remaining texts as the \u201cdunghill.\u201d Sullivan uses Jefferson\u2019s personal philosophy as (ostensibly) a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus as a segue into his own personal viewpoint on the status of Christianity today.<\/p>\n

Sullivan correctly points out that a faith long on doctrine and short on action is seriously deficient, and he does well in calling our attention to the way in which Christianity has become distorted and diseased with the prosperity gospel. The Catholic church is (rightfully) skewered for \u201cenabling, and then covering up, an international conspiracy to abuse and rape countless youths and children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those who adhere to a \u201crigid literalism\u201d (inerrancy, a 6,000 year old earth, and so forth) are taken to task as well. It should come as no surprise that Sullivan, a married homosexual, claims Jesus never addressed homosexuality, but did forgive adulterers, and strongly condemned divorce. Sullivan rails against the Catholic church for intruding into our bedrooms, beginning with its prohibition of \u201cthe pill\u201d in the 1960\u2032s, and against the church on other fronts.<\/p>\n

His answer to our modern day \u2018Christianity in Crisis\u2019 focuses on the life of St. Francis of Assisi, and the study of his life and reflections is indeed still beneficial for us today.<\/p>\n

While there are some points worth reflection and discussion in Sullivan\u2019s article, it\u2019s hard to take seriously a man who against the clear teaching of Scripture is a practicing homosexual. Those who agree with his take on sexuality may be more receptive to his message, but for most of us who stand with historical Christianity, this alone disqualifies him as worthy of serious attention. And there\u2019s always that troubling and lengthy reference to Jefferson\u2019s new and improved canon, with not even a whisper of protest.<\/p>\n

There is nothing new in Sullivan\u2019s attempt to focus on love, to the exclusion of justice, eternal consequences, and the difficult path of following Jesus. He is simply another in a long line of heretics.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row iron_row_type=”in_container” iron_remove_padding_medium=”” iron_remove_padding_small=”” iron_overlay_pattern=”” iron_parallax=”” iron_bg_video=”” css=”.vc_custom_1522698717613{margin-top: 30px !important;margin-right: 90px !important;margin-bottom: 30px !important;margin-left: 90px !important;}”][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”As My Dad Would Have Said\u2026” fit_bg_text=”0″][vc_column_text]This is a treasury of the sayings of Glenn Millikan, my father, presented to him on his 90th birthday \u2013 what have we forgotten? Add a comment at the bottom of this page.
\nWe\u2019re losing money on every sale, but we\u2019ll make it up in volume<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll pick yourself up in a corner (upon giving dad a hard time)
\nBe a good girl (boy) and laugh and sing
\nYou\u2019ll be the richest man in the graveyard (if I was working a lot of hours)
\nShe loves me madly
\nI played like a sausage (while playing rook)
\n<\/a>It\u2019s hot in this closet
\nthe hurrier I try, the behinder I get
\n(Thousands of lines continuously narrating sports events on TV in detail which everyone\u00a0had clearly seen and heard)
\n(Handing me the phone when I was visiting, with\u00a0 my significant other on the line) \u201cIt\u2019s the war department\u2026\u201d
\nYou got rocks in your head, boy…
\nFeed the baby garlic so you can find him in the dark<\/em>
\nPardon me for breathing (when offended or feelings were hurt)
\n(When rather tired) Man, I couldn\u2019t whip a cat.
\nWhy didn\u2019t you say so before you spoke?
\nDry up and blow away! (when someone was irritating Dad or being critical, usu. spoken humorously)
\ncousin weak eyes, eh? \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 was dad\u2019s comment when you couldn\u2019t read something, or needed stronger glasses etc
\nThe outgo for the upkeep\u2019s too much for the income
\nMan I\u2019m bushed
\nThe corn is green (referring to bad humor)
\nIf they\u2019re in that much of a hurry, they should have left yesterday
\nIt\u2019s mind over platter
\nYou should have stood closer to the razor (to someone growing a beard)
\nI\u2019d like to help you out\u2026which way did you come in?
\nYou\u2019re breedin\u2019 a scab on your nose
\nI don\u2019t mind being a grandpa, but I\u2019m not so sure about being married to a grandma (Spring 1958 upon the birth of Cheronne)
\nYeah yeah, sure sure
\nGrab an old cold tater and wait (hungry but forced to wait awhile to eat)
\nCan\u2019t win for losing
\nReeeediculous
\n(referring to vehicles) You have to baby \u2018em\u2026
\nMan ahoy!
\nLet\u2019s go to bed so these nice people can go home!
\nWhat in the Sam Hill
\nHome from the trenches\/salt mines
\nCobdobit!
\nPink pills for pale people
\nMy stomach\u2019s quit hurting \u2013 must be time to eat
\nI feel so old that I don\u2019t even buy green bananas
\nStupid________
\nStupid dummy\u2026
\nBusier than a one-armed paper hanger
\nPantin\u2019 like a steam engine
\nWhen\u2019s the last time you changed your oil?
\nGood grief
\nOh my achin\u2019 back
\nCriminy!
\nWe is they
\nFat and sassy (Tami Babin heard this the first time)
\nIt runs like a sewin\u2019 machine
\n\u201cRount Manier\u201d (quoting young Scott)
\nHow goes the battle?
\nFor cryin\u2019 out loud
\nDagnab it!
\nI don\u2019t know where we\u2019re going, but we\u2019re making good time
\nI have two speeds: slow and stop
\nScrappy birthday!
\nJust one more clean shirt)
\nThat\u2019s a happy thought
\nA-B-C\u2019in\u2019 ya
\nFlattery will get you everywhere
\nThings are tough all over
\nBack to the salt pit
\nNuts!
\nErtsnay (profound thanks to Betty Millikan Haskin for editorial help)
\nQuit chokin\u2019 that girl!
\nNone of your beeswax
\nOh mother bear\u2026
\n\u2026 and a parsnip in a pantry
\nOne foot on a banana peel and the other on a slippery place
\nHelp stamp out white shirts
\nHere I come you lucky people
\nAny color as long as it\u2019s red
\nI can tell you\u2019re on the level \u2019cause the bubble\u2019s in the middle
\nYou got rocks in your head, boy
\n\u2018Taint funny Mcgee!
\nWhen you\u2019re changing lanes, never check your blind spot or they\u2019ll bluff you out every time
\nShut the door behind you and don\u2019t let it hit you on the way out
\nThe hurrier I try the behinder I get
\nI thought when I got to be 90, that would be it. But, I\u2019m still here! (After his 90th birthday)
\nFantastic.
\nIt takes me longer to rest up than it does to get tired. (After breakfast\/lunch\/dinner and he went in to take a nap.)
\nYou\u2019re killing me with kindness
\nYou oughtta try some Slick 50 in it (your vehicle, because it\u2019s guaranteed to increase your mileage)
\nIt\u2019s dark in this closet
\nRise and shine
\nGood night, don\u2019t let the bedbugs bite
\nNobody here but us chickens
\nHe was goin\u2019 like sixty
\nThe hurrier I try, the behinder I get
\nHalitosis is better than no breath at all
\nUppy uppy uppy!
\nMan, he was goin\u2019 like a house-afire
\nI don\u2019t want to get \u201csoft\u201d (followed by pushups and\/or setups, or in earlier years jogging on a trail)
\nI think hair styles have been going shorter\u2026 (trying to convince me to cut my hair circa 1973)
\nYou got knots in your head?
\nThat looks like a pretty drive\u2026wonder where that road goes? (Scott Haskin got this gene in abundance, which must skip a generation)
\n<\/em>I tell you what\u2026.
\nGreat day in the morning
\nThank you, I think
\nI thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken
\nBe thankful for little things
\nOh my achin\u2019 back
\nThat\u2019s a pain in the neck
\nHome James, and don\u2019t spare the horses
\nI have to watch my girlish figure
\nMan, I\u2019m all tuckered out
\nHe was goin\u2019 like a house afire
\nLead on Macduff (tbd if this originated with mom or dad)
\nThat\u2019s as clear as mud, eh?
\nGrinnin\u2019 like a chessie cat
\nhe called my mom his \u201c\u00a0<\/em>blushing bride\u201d
\npeel me another grape (when he was enjoying being waited upon)
\nGood morning, sunshine.
\nWere you born in a barn?
\nCrumb\u2026
\nWhat a pain in the neck
\n54-40 or fight
\nTippecanoe and Tyler too\u2026
\nIs there anything else I can pickup as long as I am down here? (Said after he had dropped something. With his bad knees it was an adventure. As my knees get stiffer, I have started using this saying.) ~ courtesy Doug Haskin[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row iron_row_type=”full_width” iron_remove_padding_medium=”” iron_remove_padding_small=”” iron_overlay_pattern=”” iron_parallax=”” iron_bg_video=”” css=”.vc_custom_1522697674465{background-image: url(http:\/\/stevemillikan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/black-and-white-blog-business-261577.jpg?id=1335) !important;}”][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”400px”][vc_custom_heading text=”Blog” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:60|text_align:center|color:%23ffffff” fit_bg_text=”0″][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row iron_row_type=”in_container” iron_remove_padding_medium=”” iron_remove_padding_small=”” iron_overlay_pattern=”” iron_parallax=”” iron_bg_video=”” css=”.vc_custom_1522699098281{margin-top: 30px !important;margin-right: 90px !important;margin-left: 90px !important;border-bottom-width: 30px !important;}”][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”How Auto-Tune Destroyed Western Civilization ” fit_bg_text=”0″][vc_column_text]Auto-tune is a pitch correction program for music production. It\u2019s not the thing itself (cf. Kleenex, Band-Aids, or Coke in the southern climes). Many companies have software (or hardware) to accommodate the buyer, and although AutoTune is just one option available, it has become […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1326","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevemillikan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevemillikan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevemillikan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevemillikan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevemillikan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1326"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/stevemillikan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1342,"href":"https:\/\/stevemillikan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1326\/revisions\/1342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevemillikan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}