The Origins

Where did the software come from?

The term “Auto-tune” is used commonly now as an all inclusive term for vocal manipulation in a similar way that people commonly refer to all tissues as Kleenex (when in reality, Kleenex is the name of a brand). Auto-tune, in actuality is a software. Interestingly enough,  the software’s invention had nothing to do with music. In the 1990s, Andy Hildebrand, a geophysicist who worked with Exxon, came up with a technique called autocorrelation to interpret sound waves when trying to locate oil underground. Hildebrand founded the company that later became Antares, where he used his creation on voices. 

This revolutionary tool was immediately coopted by the recording industry, using it to come out with smash hits like Cher’s 1998 song, “Believe.”

Cher was not the first to use the software, but is often credited with being among the first to bring it into the limelight. 

Auto-tune reemerged with a new type of life and energy in 2003 with the rise of “rhythm and blues crooner”, T-Pain.  Now referred to as the “King of Auto-tune”, T-Pain has embodied what it means to master Auto-tune with intention and musicality. While his legacy and technique is scrutinized,  his 28 hits in the Billboard’s top 100, implies that Auto-tune has served him well. 

https://www.livescience.com/11046-auto-tune-work.html

It’s important to understand that while T-Pain prided himself in his mastery of Auto-tune, the general public didn’t seem to recognize him as a musician until he “proved” his talent by performing acoustically. After his 2014 Tiny Desk Concert performance for NPR, T-Pain gained a sense of legitimacy that led some to respect the use of Auto-tune as an instrument , while it provoked others to use the video as evidence of why Auto-tune shouldn’t be necessary for “real talent”.

The Cultural Origins of Auto-tune

While the software itself was created fairly recently in a Western setting, the sound achieved by Auto-tune is deeply rooted in Black, specifically Black African history. 

Academics like Regina Bradley believe that autotune has helped create a space for black artists to create music and fight stereotypes: “one possible way for rappers to overcome the ‘inability to speak’ beyond corporate control is through the distortion of one’s voice through production tools like autotune… autotune provides a space for black male rappers to distance themselves from the expected ‘hardness’ of a characteristically black masculine sound” (Bradley 62).

Auto-tune, and techniques like it, are meant to give space for the sound of the black voice while also embodying the black experience within a Euro-centric, white culture: “The manipulation of sophisticated music technology to reflect cultural priorities is connected to the 
black composer/improviser’s long tradition of transforming European acoustical instruments on the level of sound and technique” (Williams 54). Williams argues that “African musical traits not only survived the Middle Passage but continue to play a role in the development of various types of African American music”.  He points to the sounds of Miles Davis on trumpet and anti-pianism of Thelonious Monk as examples of historical and cultural practices of reclaiming and reinventing the sound on “traditional” instruments.

Bradley, Regina. “Contextualizing Hip Hop Sonic Cool Pose in Late Twentieth- and Twenty-first-century Rap Music.” Current Musicology, No. 98, Spring 2012. Pg 55-70.

Williams, James Gordon. “Crossing Cinematic and Sonic Bar Lines: “T-Pain’s ‘Can’t Believe It’.” Los Angeles, Ethnomusicology Review, Vol. 19, Fall 2014.