The glories of Justin Bieber

Here's the link to the video for all you slaves to the Facebook system, who won't see it above while reading in their walled garden ;-) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWIwRg9CKu8.

I have been decompressing following the past few months of intense activity - Prahlad's hospitalisation and diagnosis with Type 1 Diabetes, Vaiyasaki's two month kirtan tour of Australia, Param Satya's hospitalisation and subsequent start of chemotherapy, Gaura Vani's two month kirtan tour of Australia, and the demands of a full-time job managing a business unit composed of 14 technical writers.

Yesterday I stumbled across this fellow, Justin Bieber. I admit I'd heard the name before, in the context of a stereotypical pin up pop star and a star child, but I'd never checked him out.

I don't really take my cues so well from other people around me, so I don't really care if he's popular or not, or it is acceptable or cool to like him or whatever. I watched this video, and I like it. I'm going to go see his movie "Never Say Never" in 3d when it comes out.

Here is what I like about this video:

1. They are using autotune on the singing the whole way through

Justin is singing into a wireless headset mike, and his voice is being autotuned. This is a technology that pulls his singing on pitch. I can recognise it because I have a hardware unit that does exactly this. Gaura Vani brought it over from the States for me in October 2009. Personally I think that autotune sounds great. I'm not talking about "singing on pitch" - I'm talking about the artifacting sound that happens when the computer algorithm snaps the pitch between one note and another.

There are two settings for autotune - scale and speed. The scale is set to include notes that are in key, and exclude notes that are out of key. The speed is set to control how fast the autotuner works. When Justin starts singing the autotuner is set to a speed above zero. It is audible as an slightly unnatural bending sound, something like a chorus. This kind of autotune, when applied to a singing take that is slightly off-pitch, can make it sound pitch perfect, and if it is expertly used it can be undetectable, apart from the nagging suspicion that such a pitch-perfect take must have used technological assistance.

You can tell which of Justin's vocal lines he is singing live, and which are being provided by backing tracks by listening for the audible auto-tune artifacting.

When Usher comes out for the second song, the autotune speed is set to zero. This means that the pitch "snaps" between in-key notes. This is a fully artificial sound. It's not about singing on-key, it's about an effected voice. We might as well say that chorus or reverb or compression are unnatural. They all are. Autotune is just another electronic tool is the toolkit. And one that I personally like.

It takes technique to be able to sing with autotune to get that effect. Let me reiterate: these guys are not using autotune to try to sound like a person singing pitch perfect without autotune - they are using autotune to sound like a person singing with autotune. If you've never tried it you don't know what's involved in getting the inflections and the autotune pitch snapping effect to come out like these guys do. It takes a particular singing technique to get this effect.

The other thing about Autotune is that it allows these guys to dance like that, without having to worry about missing pitch due to breathlessness.

When Jadon Smith pops out (which I'll also mention later), they are not autotuning his voice. You can hear him go off pitch.

2. The way this piece is paced is incredible.

George Lucas explains that a technique he uses in his movies (and you'll see this all over Indiana Jones and Star Wars once you know what it is) is "out of the frying pan and into the fire". For example, in Star Wars (1977) Han and Luke rescue Leia from the cell on the Death Star, only to get pinned down by a fire fight. They escape by jumping down a rubbish chute, only to be attacked by a monster lurking in the water. They escape from the monster, only to find themselves being crushed by the walls of a garbage compactor... you get the idea.

This video uses the same idea. Justin starts off singing with an acoustic guitar. Ok, it's famous Justin with a guitar. How cute. Then suddenly a bunch of ninjas come in drumming. The actual drumming sound is coming from the PA, but these guys are playing along. The crowd's attention goes to the drumming troupe, which gives Justin the opportunity to get into costume and into position. The drummer's finish with a flourish, and in the background part of the set flies up into the ceiling to reveal Justin and a bunch of ninja-styled dancers.

Justin then starts his song. On the word "fire" two fire-breathers unleash flames to the ceiling. The timing is slightly off, so they are not exactly simultaneous, but it's pretty damn good given the fact that this is live, the complexity of the whole piece, and the fact that this is the most obvious mistake in the whole thing.

On the word "higher", ninjas stack up and the guy on top does a handstand on the hands of the guy beneath him.

The dancing supports the words, something that I saw Gaura Vani and As Kindred Spirits do on their recent Australian tour. They had Vrinda or Jahnavi do a Bharat Natyam-inspired interpretative dance along with a pastime narrated by Gaura over a solid groove laid down by the band. It's a powerful confluence of arts to create an immersive experience.

The piece continues with Justin doing a choreographed kung-fu sequence with the backing dancers doing mad kung-fu flips totally inspired by Hong Kong martial arts movies and John Woo's directing. Justin's dancing is really good. It's obviously inspired by Michael Jackson, who was a huge innovator of dancing and music videos.

Then things go the next level when the kung-fu flipping piece ends on the dime with the music, and Jadon Smith pops up out of the stage! Frickin' awesome!

Now it's a rapping duet between the young son of Will Smith and Justin. The camera cuts between the proud parents in the audience and the stage, where Justin and Jadon are trading off lines and dance moves.

This is a performance at the Grammies, so it's an inhouse crowd. It's entertainment for professional entertainers. It's also something like a kuli moment. These parents are elated to see their son following in their footsteps, and surpassing them at such a young age. Will Smith was a rapper, but he never rocked it like Jadon is rocking it right now.

The piece ends, then immediately Usher comes out. He does another singing and dancing piece clearly influenced by Michael Jackson, and also pirouettes in a manner that totally looks like Kanapathy from Melbourne.

Then Justin comes back on to end the piece as a duet.

3. The scale of it is incredible

It's the perfect confluence of arts and technology. Sound is amazing. Music production is amazing. When Justin starts his song the bass tone is amazing with the slapping riff, then the bass drops out, and comes back in as a synth bass for the song. The composition is impeccable. The music perfectly supports the mood (as does the autotune). The dancing is incredibly complex and high energy. The scale of the dancing is off the charts. Massive screens behind the stage project supporting visuals. Flames fly into the air. Lights flare. Wireless microphones are almost transparent, and act as a prop in the case of Jadon's handheld. The costumes are incredible. The dancing is incredible.

The whole thing is a massive visual and sonic feast.

The amount of preparation and rehearsal that went into that piece is incredible. We are looking at person-years of work there, not including the years that it would have taken each of the participants to hone their individual craft. Just the planning, preparation, assembly, and rehearsal of that one piece is a huge endeavour requiring skills across the spectrum and logistical organisation.

This is especially inspirational to me at the moment given the vision that Gaura Vani, Jahnavi and Shree Shyam shared with me on their recent visit to Australia, the project that they are working on for the next two years:

Develop and manifest a live interactive experience on the bedrock of sacred sound. Maximising the creative talents of the artists, this interactive experience uses a spectrum of arts and technology - including music, story-telling, dance, and visual arts - to transport the audience to a place where the dialogue between the soul and the divine is of prime relevance.

The elevator pitch is "Sunday Feast 2.0 on Crack".

So yeah, I think that Bieber piece is awesome. As I said on facebook: "Awesome in so many dimensions". The only missing piece is a consciousness-raising message, and integration into a consciousness-raising whole lifestyle package. As Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati would put it: "Religion means proper adjustment", or as Srila Prabhupada would say: "Just add Krishna".