Emotional Signals
Auto-Tune, Melodyne, and the Cultural Politics of Pitch Correction
An ethnographic account of the history, development, and cultural impacts of digital tuning software
Description
In Emotional Signals, Catherine Provenzano draws on extensive ethnographic and historical research to offer an in-depth analysis of the aesthetics and politics of pitch correction software—like Auto-Tune and Melodyne—which have radically transformed music and its production. She shows how questions of authenticity, labor, and emotion play out in how these tools are designed by software developers, used by producers and artists, and heard by audiences. Provenzano locates pitch correction within a political economy of feeling, tied up with the self-regulation of race and gender and entrenched in the operations of marketable selves. Emotional Signals is essential reading for anyone interested in the way we make music—and selfhood—in the twenty-first century.
Catherine Provenzano is Assistant Professor of Musicology at the University of California, Los Angeles Herb Alpert School of Music.
Reviews
"Provenzano provides unique critical insights as she weaves together literature from a variety of disciplines including studies in sound, voice, popular music, and software."
- Mike D'Errico, Albright College