by Mark JW Graham – Vocal Coach in Nottingham, UK | Book Now
I love taking my daughter – Isla – to school and picking her up. I get to do it every day (bar one) in the week. It’s one of the greatest advantages of running your own business: you can make time to do the things that matter to you, especially with the people who matter to you. And this particular week I introduced her to a song recorded in a world without autotune.
One of the things we enjoy doing after school is sitting down together, chatting about our day, and often watching some short videos on YouTube. These may be learning videos, bike builds, and – as you may expect – videos of music performances.
One week, I introduced her to Sam and Dave. Sam Moore and Dave Prater were a soul duo that started performing together in the 60s and continued for many decades. You’ll know some of their hits like “Soul Man”, “Hold On, I’m Comin’”, “I Thank You”, and more.
Isla was utterly enraptured by the performances. She’s seen plenty of live music in recent years – festivals, events, churches, choirs – but she’d never heard anything that grabbed her like this did:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYh-LwbUwoQ
Here’s the thing about quality: it is often self-evident. Of course, taste plays a role in whether someone enjoys a piece of music. But once someone has had enough exposure to a discipline, a higher level of quality tends to stand out on its own. It feels like “a cut above”.
Note: I’m not saying this is the greatest music ever recorded, or that it’s a perfect performance. You don’t even have to like this kind of music. But go with me on this as an illustration of what it was like to record and perform in a world without autotune.
The problem we face in modern music
We are what we eat.
What we consume shapes what we are, what we prefer, and what we accept as “normal”. And in a world populated by Justin Bieber, Maroon 5, Billie Eilish, etc., it’s very easy to forget what real, unedited voices actually sound like.
Don’t misunderstand me — I like many of these artists. I’m not trying to tear down their commercial success or their musical validity. But what you’re hearing is a heavily, heavily processed version of what those voices would sound like if you were in a room with them, unamplified, no production.
What I also want to draw attention to is how different the demands are on artists now. The money in the industry is enormous. But the level of ability you need to record an album or tour as an act is, in many cases, far lower than it was.
Live then vs live now
Think about it: when you watch that 1974 video (yes, 1974), it’s all done live with zero technical aids. There is no autotune. Absolutely no click track or in-ear monitors. There are no overdubs. There’s no post-production to polish up the sound. It was a live televised performance. There are no do-overs, no retakes. There are no backing tracks.
Every band member is responsible for playing with each other, in real time, and doing it in tune and in time. Together.
In contrast, when you watch a “live” performance from many mainstream artists in the last 10 years, you’re very often hearing something that’s been massaged and produced to within an inch of its life — even live. Pre-recorded tracks are used to guarantee consistency. When something actually is live, autotune is often running quietly in the background to iron out imperfections a singer might let slip.
Unless you’re watching someone recorded on a random phone microphone in a tiny room with no production at all, you’re almost never hearing a truly unprocessed live voice from a major act.
Studio then vs studio now
Back in 1974, in the studio, overdubs were possible and some pitch manipulation could be done (for example, speeding up or slowing down tape, then splicing the “good” bits together). But that was an unbelievably painstaking process.
Everything was recorded to tape. Hard drives didn’t exist. Tape wasn’t cheap, and neither was studio time. Every hour spent in the studio and every reel of tape had a real financial cost. Most projects couldn’t afford unlimited takes.
It was usually easier — and cheaper — to get better at your part and perform it properly.
This is the work ethic that produced acts like Sam and Dave, and many of the best acts of earlier eras. And this is exactly what Isla was picking up on. Even as a child, she could feel the difference in intention, control, commitment. The quality was self-evident.
In contrast, now you can do a billion takes until you get what you want. Autotune can fix pitch in seconds. Timing can be quantised. “Live” instruments can be sample-replaced. Modern pop almost needs autotune to sound idiomatically “right”.
Worse still, many of us are being trained out of knowing what real voices actually sound like. I’ve taught younger singers who literally try to imitate autotune in their own voice. They’ve heard so much tuning that the artificial, mechanical “snap” between notes sounds to them like good technique.
It’s the vocal equivalent of body dysmorphia created by Instagram — where you’re comparing yourself to an altered standard and thinking the edit is “real”.
This is the diet a lot of modern music is feeding us, especially younger singers.
Conclusion: why this matters
I’m not asking you to decide that modern music is bad, or that older music should live on a pedestal. That’s not the point.
I want you to notice how much technology has shaped what we call “good singing”, and how that shapes your ear. If you’ve grown up mostly on modern music — or you’ve never deliberately compared eras — your ear might actually reject the sound of an unprocessed, real voice. You might not recognise it as “good”, because it doesn’t sound like the produced, tuned, layered voices you’re used to.
So: dive back into some older performances. Listen through the lens of everything above. You may be surprised by how impressive so much of it was, especially given how hard it was to capture a great take “back in the day”.
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Mark JW Graham - Mark is a high-end vocal coach and singing teacher based in Nottingham, UK.
Certified in Speech Level Singing ®, and with over 20 years of musical experience, he is known as the "go-to vocal coach" for singers wanting dramatic improvements in their singing voice in a short space of time.
Trusted by singers worldwide, Mark’s expertise as a coach, singer and musician helps clients transform their voices and raise their musicianship to new levels.
SLS Certified Vocal Coach · 20+ Years Experience · Trusted Worldwide