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#272219 - 17/02/10 06:18 PM
Miming
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Danmeemusic a.k.a. BB
Forum Council Member
Old Timer
Registered: 02/01/02
Posts: 1898
Loc: Manchester or Shropshire
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Okay, I want some honest opinions on this.
The use of miming seems to be much more prominent, and just as frowned upon as it always has been. It seems as though the majority of live television programmes prefer artists to mime, especially when dance routines are involved. A particular performance that has upset people was Cheryl Cole's performance at last night's Brit Awards in London. In a number of performances recently she has been known to be either fully miming, or using a pre-recorded track to sound as though it was live. Coupled with the use of a microphone that is only used in certain places, such as a chorus, or thanking the audience at the end. Her performance (which includes a Jackson inspired "toaster" entrance sequence) can be found here. It might also be useful to note that the singer in the second section is of this performance is also miming, to a different singer's voice. Knowing the singer that sang the track originally I would not be surprised if there was legal action taken, as she was asked whether they could use her track and have someone else mime it. When she said no, but offered to sing it herself, the declined and went ahead with their original plan anyway.
Now, I'd like to compare this to many other artists over the years who have mimed in live TV performances over the years. A very similar technique was often used by Michael Jackson on many awards ceremony appearances, for instance the 1988 Grammy Awards where Jackson performed a medley of hits, this can be found here.
Now having worked with singers who perform extensive dance routines as part of their performance, I understand totally the use of miming to a track. I also understand the reasons why television producers might want artists to mime, the best example of this would be the show Top Of The Pops. The show was essentially a run down of the chart positions, usually with a performance by each band. On a related note, what is generally considered the first full music video, Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, was created so the band did not have to travel to london to record a Top Of The Pops performance when it went to number 1 in 1975. This might have been mainly because they were on tour at the time and the logistics of getting back to London made it impossible to do, especially when the song was topping the charts for a number of weeks. Roger Taylor has also admitted to hating doing Top of the Pops because they were not allowed to perform live. From a producer's point of view there is also an advantage to an artist miming, for instance with the growing use of auto-tune on records if an artists tuning is not brilliant when in a live setting, or if the singer is unwell and just not physically able to pitch notes correctly, why would you want a substandard version of the song to be seen. From a sales point of view this could possibly be quite harmful. The same goes for when dance routines are used to help sell a song, if the singer is dancing at full pelt, then it is only natural that the vocals might suffer slightly. This is made obvious when an artist does sing live whilst doing a complete dance routine. I'd like to refer again to Michael Jackson and the rehearsal of Wanna Be Starting Something featured in This Is It, which can be found here. This is a perfect example, as it is clear that Jackson is marking the routine, and not singing or dancing at 100% effort. The affect on his voice from having to make such movements can be heard quite clearly , and from a production point of view, if the performance was in the process of selling a record, then maybe miming, or using what some people have referred to as a jam-track would have its advantages.
From the point of view of a performing musician however, I can sympathise with artists such as Roger Taylor, of Queen, who despised having to mime. Although it may not be a personal slur against you being asked to mime does sometimes seem quite insulting, for obvious reasons. It may be quite sad that you are playing along, but not actually being heard live. To some extent it may even be seen as fraudulent as Joe Public would probably believe you are playing live, and quite often it would be advertised as a 'live performance'.
I would argue that miming does have a lot of advantages, and can see why some people prefer to mime in performance such as the ones mentioned earlier. But, I can also see the other side of the argument that we, as performers, have trained for many years to be the best we can at our chosen instrument, and we want to show people what we can do.
I would like to know people's thoughts on this subject, is it right to mime? How would you react if asked to mime or play to a jam-track? Would you prefer to see all these performances with the little mistakes kept in or would you like a flawless rendition of the piece to be performed?
Especially the sound engineers amongst us, what are your thoughts?
Thanks for reading,
Dan
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#272235 - 18/02/10 06:10 AM
Re: Miming
[Re: Danmeemusic a.k.a. BB]
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MacPhee84
Forum Council Member
Old Timer
Registered: 25/07/02
Posts: 2026
Loc: Woking - Surrey
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Good post BB!
Personaly I dont like Miming, even to the extent that I'd rather see a sub standard live performance then a mimed performance. There's somthing about a live performance that I just love, I love the little mistakes that can happen, and the recovery of the big mistakes. And that goes for when my band is playing too!
I think the most well known mime is Milli Vanilli. After they were caught miming it turned out that they couldn't even sing!
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#272243 - 18/02/10 07:20 AM
Re: Miming
[Re: stickyfiddle]
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english_bob
english_bob
Unregistered
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It's certainly the safer option for pop acts with negligible levels of talent and/or experience of actually performing live- I remember watching All Saints performing an impromptu live a cappella ending to their grammatical horror "Never Ever". It started in four-part harmony and gradually, excruciatingly slipped in to unison singing a semitone or so below the key it started in. Yikes.
I don't really care what t!ts 'n' @ss pop singers like Cheryl Cole do, but anyone who's meant to be famous for their talent rather than their looks really ought to be performing live, and incidents like the All Saints thing I mentioned really do separate the talent from the "talent".
Edited by english_bob (18/02/10 07:21 AM)
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#272245 - 18/02/10 08:23 AM
Re: Miming
[Re: ]
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ICE band
Be Nice (I'm New!)
Registered: 18/02/10
Posts: 4
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What I don't understand is how these people can "make it" in the music business when they clearly can't sing.
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#272246 - 18/02/10 08:55 AM
Re: Miming
[Re: ICE band]
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MacPhee84
Forum Council Member
Old Timer
Registered: 25/07/02
Posts: 2026
Loc: Woking - Surrey
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Most of the acts that mime are what I would call 'The looking Act' where they are plesent to the eye and good at dancing but when it comes to a live performance they are unable to match the over produced piece that they were given to perform. and its hard work to dance and sing at the same time... Lord knows i struggle to play guitar and sing when it starts getting complex!
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Guitars: Gibson Les Paul Classic - Gibson SG Standard Stomp Boxes - Digitech Hotrod & Digital Delay - Boss Compress/Sustain - Morley Power Wah *NEW* MXR Phaser 90 EVH Edition Amp: Vox AC30 WEB - http://www.myspace.com/top8theband
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#272247 - 18/02/10 09:04 AM
Re: Miming
[Re: ICE band]
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english_bob
english_bob
Unregistered
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What I don't understand is how these people can "make it" in the music business when they clearly can't sing.
T!ts and @ss, sir. T!ts and @ss. Even that funny looking one from JLS has a lot of cleavage showing 
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#272248 - 18/02/10 09:23 AM
Re: Miming
[Re: ]
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MacPhee84
Forum Council Member
Old Timer
Registered: 25/07/02
Posts: 2026
Loc: Woking - Surrey
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T!ts and @ss, sir. T!ts and @ss. Even that funny looking one from JLS has a lot of cleavage showing
HAHA Dude. I nearly spat out my coffee reading that!
_________________________
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#272251 - 18/02/10 10:21 AM
Re: Miming
[Re: MacPhee84]
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Oldjono
Professional Forumite!
Registered: 15/09/09
Posts: 842
Loc: Dorset
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The date? 7th July 1977. The venue? Hammersmith Odeon. The band? Rush, their first ever London performance. A magical experience and it was as live as I am today. That is the difference.
To me that was history in the making.
When you pay for a live show that is what you expect. If I bought a ticket for a concert and they mimed I would walk out. Unless it was a French theatre production and that's what would have been intended of course.
As for the TV popstars well that's corperate merchandising and people fall for it because they have been conned, and yet, they know that and continue to allow themselves to be too. Now that is just plain stupid!
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#272252 - 18/02/10 10:28 AM
Re: Miming
[Re: MacPhee84]
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Danmeemusic a.k.a. BB
Forum Council Member
Old Timer
Registered: 02/01/02
Posts: 1898
Loc: Manchester or Shropshire
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Most of the acts that mime are what I would call 'The looking Act' where they are plesent to the eye and good at dancing but when it comes to a live performance they are unable to match the over produced piece that they were given to perform. and its hard work to dance and sing at the same time... Lord knows i struggle to play guitar and sing when it starts getting complex!
It probably is more convenient to take this angle considering the nature of the performances. A large portion of the pop industry is made up of groups of good looking young women, who, ultimately look good on camera and can move about seductively. I hesitate to say dance because if you were to give them a routine like something from West Side Story then they wouldn't stand a chance. If you saw Amanda Holden's latest series you'll understand this as well. In the first episode she went to Paris to learn how to be a show girl. She is a trained actress, having graduated theatre school in the early 90s, but given a rather complicated routine she seriously struggled. If there were singing involved in this as well, then I would not be too sure whether she would have pulled it off.
The other side to the singing while performing routines argument is reflected on the theatre stage. In the majority of musicals, a quick look at whats on in the west end would be good, contain a large portion of song and dance numbers. The performers are expected to sing (obviously at the correct pitch and time) as well as do quite complicated routines. Chicago for instance contains some very tricky music, as well as some very tricky dancing. Do these performers mime? Well, on the whole no, they have to sing. They have to sing usually 8 to 10 shows a week. Now, does this mean that they are superior performers? I wouldn't like to answer that question. In the theatre world, it is much more frowned upon to mime songs, however in the panto season this goes out of the door. Not only do the pantos generally use backing tracks, quite often there might be a lot of vocals on the tracks allowing the singers to jam along instead of having to struggle singing at full pelt.
For me, the most irritating aspect of miming is when singers use a microphone when they are not singing. Giving the impression that they are genuinely singing live. If it generally accepted that they mime when they are performing, then just get on with. Don't defraud your audience. I do believe there is a time and place for keeping the microphone when you are miming, for instance if it is a headset mic and you are miming one song with a complicated dance routine, then taking the mic off would not help anything. But for performances such as Cole's at the Brit awards, the only time her mic was used was when she thanked the audience. The second singer also had a mic but was clearly miming because it wasn't even her voice!
I would like to see a music industry where miming was not allowed, and backing tracks, or jam tracks were not allowed. But I can't ever see this happening. Who knows, some day it might but certainly not in the industry as it stands.
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