Talk: Pitch Correction Software and Vocal Ecology

In 1998, geophysicist and flautist Dr. Andy Hildebrand seemed to have transcended the limits of the human voice. He made Auto-Tune, “a box that could make [anyone] sing in tune,” and his invention was a hit: producers prized it, studios bought it, and Auto-Tune quickly became ubiquitous in pop music production and beyond. Provenzano will give an ethnographically-grounded history of digital pitch correction technologies and the kinds of vocalities, production practices, anxieties and innovations that have bloomed, and withered, around them.