Challenge: record yourself singing to a quantized MIDI, track, but make it breathe with musicality…without making any rhythm inaccurate, strictly speaking.
The best way to get a consistent MIDI guide track is to quantize the heck out of it. When you quantize the MIDI, you take out all the small variations in rhythmic interpretation – so the rhythms are perfectly consistent and lined up to a click track.
That kind of guide track is great for practicing with – it is clear, consistent, and easy-to-follow.
That’s not the best way to get a quality performance, though. All of those micro-variations are what make music breathe. The art of making music in a group is the art of de-qauntizing–of taking the un-subtle music from the page or the MIDI and letting it relax into musicality.
It’s a challenge, because it’s so easy (and assessable) to prioritize accuracy. Musicality is much more ephemeral and much subtler.
An ensemble that can be together without feeling quantized is the goal. Let’s learn to hear and sing together in a more sophisticated way.