Post #3484038

2026-06-30 04:17 UTC

Imagine being a young singer in 2010, going to a music school and having them spend more than half the class time on responsible use of autotune. You tell them you're not singing into microphones at all right now and you don't have a computer, you actually want to learn about scales, reading music, warm-ups, how to engage the diaphragm, voice box anatomy and building out a repertoire. They tell you that before any of that you must learn how to use autotune properly and how not to use it, otherwise you'll be left behind. All the exams are primarily testing that you're not using autotune to 'cheat'. You're not sure what you would use it to cheat at or what other thing you should be doing, because the only thing you've been shown how to do is interact with autotune. None of the teachers seem to know how autotune fits into singing, but they know it's equally naughty for students to use it and to refuse to use it. This is what uni in 2026 is like.

Replies (4)

@geonerd@mapstodon.space 2026-06-30 05:54

@coolandnormal@aus.social so, how do students deal with this dilemma in practice?

Open ##3665180
@brouhaha@mastodon.social 2026-07-05 05:59

@coolandnormal@aus.social The best use of #autotune is NOT using it. #GrumpyOldMan

Open ##3665188
@Lunaphied@provably.online 2026-07-05 10:24

@coolandnormal@aus.social reminded that in high school about a decade and a half ago we used to"SmartMusic" to do computer graded homework exercises for our band class. It predictably had some significant areas of fault

Open ##4263884
@Lunaphied@provably.online 2026-07-05 10:31

@coolandnormal@aus.social I think in general regardless of any views on AI itself this situation is absurd, unfair, and overall demonstrates just about everything wrong with universities as they have become today. We care so much about "cheating" things that should only be there to help guide better student learning and reflect their progress (despite not letting students improve themselves afterwards and reflect that improvement, thus making it a punishment). We overload students with more work than they could possibly reasonably accomplish while partaking in all the other activities that schools have to offer. We teach students based solely on accreditations made up by someone somewhere else and often omit both necessary job knowledge and focus too much on job training instead of overall education. And then we punish students for trying to grasp at any tools they might find to try and escape this. After having pushed them there in the first place. The business model of sites like Chegg are entirely reliant on this and now AI companies are profiting off the same disparities. I found that the more advanced your topics were the more likely you were to have weird homework questions that no tutor could assist with. What tools does a stuck student even have anymore at that point?

Open ##4263886