Artistic License Music: Difference between revisions

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Generally a musical trope of they [[Did Not Do the Research]]. To people not familiar with music, it doesn't bother, likely because it's not relevant to the plot, but to musicians it's obvious. It also mostly applies to instrumental music, because not everyone knows the technical skills and what it looks like to play an instrument, and instruments can be easily substituted in on the soundtrack because of the uniformity of sound. Guitars sound much more like each other than voices do.
 
* Type 1 is on the performance end, where an actor is playing a performer and is obviously NOT''not'' playing it in real life. Sometimes this is [[Lampshaded]] for comic effect, and thus [[Breaking the Fourth Wall]].
* Type 2 is on the writing or editing end, where the writer or editor is not familiar with music. This applies to incorrect terminology, obvious dubbing or computerized music. This is less common because usually higher-end productions come with a composer, sound editor, music supervisor, etc., and have decent sound libraries.
 
Supertrope to [[Slow Left Hand]].
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{{examples}}
== Advertisements[[Advertising]] ==
* [[Bruce Campbell]] recorded a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg6bZSM48vU&feature=related commercial for Old Spice] where he's playing "Hungry Like the Wolf" on a piano. About twenty seconds in, he lifts both his hands off the keys to point at his audience, while the piano keeps playing.
 
== Fanfiction[[Fan Works]] ==
* In ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4209337/1/Divinity Divinity]'', Hinata, Sakura, Ino, Tenten, and Temari all are learning musical instruments...but since nobody else plays the harp, Hinata's stuck teaching herself instead of being tutored. The girls are seven or eight at the oldest.<ref>let's not even get into the whole theoretical part, either. Or how when Hinata has trouble learning a piece, everyone else teases her for being bad at music. UGH.</ref>
 
== Films[[Film]] ==
* ''[[August Rush]]'': Electric guitars without amps, a so-so composition that gets him into Juilliard without the audition process, his sudden professional-grade skill at all these things without any previous training. Generally the movie did not play well with musicians.
* ''[[Bedazzled]]'' (the remake): Brendan Fraser is playing guitar during one of the fantasies, and he has his hand above the capo.
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* In the Canadian film ''[[Hard Core Logo]]'', Callum Keith Rennie's portrayal of Billy Tallent, guitarist of the eponymous band, barely even looks like he's trying during the performance scenes. Hugh Dillion as singer/rhythm guitarist Joe Dick is much more believable, as he's an actual musician.
* Kirk Douglas may do his own singing for the song "Whale of a Tale" in the movie ''[[Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea]]'', but he certainly doesn't handle the music. Like most fake guitar players, he remembers to strum, but almost completely ignores the existence of the frets.
* In the film version of ''[[Ghost World]]'', the actor portraying the guitarist/singer of Blueshammer has never played a guitar in his life.
* Averted in ''[[Master and Commander]]|Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World]]''. Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany took lessons on the violin and cello, respectively, so that they would at least appear to have some experience. When the scene was filmed, they played along with the recording which would be dubbed over for the finished product. Both turned out to be decent musicians anyway, particularly Bettany. In fact, the artificially polished performance of the film made the characters better musicians then their literary counterparts. In the novels, both men are little more than enthusiastic amateurs, rather than Regency-era versions of Yo Yo Ma.
* Dooley Wilson, who played Sam in ''[[Casablanca]]'', was a drummer, not a pianist. [[Slow Left Hand|It's fairly obvious]].
* ''[[Cannibal! The Musical]]'': The conversation at the end of "The Trapper Song" is an aversion. [[Trey Parker and Matt Stone]] obviously know their basic music theory.▼
{{quote|'''Frenchy:'''Nutter was singing in the wrong key!▼
'''Nutter:''' No I wasn't. It was Loutzenheiser. I was singing in E♭ minor.▼
'''Frenchy:''' The song's in F♯ major!▼
'''Bell:''' I think they're the same thing. I mean, E♭ is the relative minor of F♯.▼
'''Frenchy:''' No, it isn't. The relative minor is 3 half-tones ''down'' from the major, not up!▼
'''Noon:''' No, it's 3 down. Like A is the relative minor of C major.▼
'''Loutzenheiser:''' But isn't A♯ in C major?▼
'''Bell:''' Wait, are you singing mixolydian scales, or something?▼
'''Frenchy:''' A# is tonic to C major. It's the 6th!▼
'''Humphrey:''' No it isn't!▼
'''Swan:''' Well, it'd be like a raised 13th if anything. }}▼
** [[Don't Explain the Joke|A#'s enharmonic Bb is in C mixolydian. Props to Bell.]]▼
 
== [[Live-Action TV]] ==
* An episode of ''[[Bones]]'' has Dr. Brennan claiming that by knowing how to play the ''akonting'' (a West-African 3 stringed, non-fretted lute), she could play blues-style electric guitar. While the writers were trying to [[Show Their Work]] by knowing what an ''akonting'' is, the instruments are too distant in style, culture, structure, and tuning to pull that off.
* ''[[Glee]]'': Calling what they do a "glee club" is like calling a rock band a "string orchestra.". The term is "show choir" (which they do acknowledge in show). "Show Choir" probably didn't sound as cool a title.
** Though, it could be a [[Truth in Television]], or [[Defictionalization]], as a lot of show choirs in the U.S. are calling themselves "Glee Clubs."
** More recently{{when}}, ''Glee'' had a madrigal choir competing against New Directions ''at a show-choir competition.'' There are other competitions for typical school choirs (not show choirs), where one would think that a madrigal choir, with their use of classical repertoire and lack of dancing, would fit better.
* ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'': Emma playing the cello is to a lesser degree. She does move her fingers some, and some of the open strings match what is heard, but what she was playing would in real life like sound [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS6KI0dnkiw like this].
* ''[[Parks and Recreation]]'': Leslie is listening to bluegrass music, and the banjo is MIDI. It could be a case of Leslie not being able to distinguish real instruments from MIDI, but most $1.00 CDs you can get at a gas station have real instruments.
* [[Kelsey Grammer]]'s fake piano playing is actually pretty convincing in ''[[Frasier]]'' but if you look closely you can see that it's dubbed. Definitely not [[Lampshaded]].
* The ''[[Hot in Cleveland]]'' episode where the girls form a band seems to have been this trope. It's most obvious for [[Betty White]]'s character. You really gonna make a woman in her eighties hit those drums?
* When Montoya plays the violin in the first episode of ''[[Queen of Swords]]'', he just draws the bow across the strings in no particular rhythm, and doesn't even bother moving his fingers.
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* [[Rebecca Black]]'s song (no, not [[Friday (song)|"Friday"]]) "My Moment". At the beginning of the song you see Rebecca Black in a recording studio with a guitarist, a drummer and a bass player. Absolutely nowhere in the song can you hear a guitar or a bass.
* Richard Swift's "Knee-High Boogie Blues" video has a lot of closeup shots where it's obvious the drumsticks are not touching the drum head at any point, and the guitarist isn't touching the strings at all. It's so obvious that one can only assume that it was intentional.
 
== [[Theatre]] ==
* In performances of ''You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown'', Schroeder's miniature piano is obviously fake, and an orchestra piano is what's actually playing; some of the notes aren't even possible on a piano the size of his.▼
** Toy Pianos like Schroeder's generally can't play accidentals (Sharps and flats). it's even pointed out in one comic strip that the black keys are just painted on.▼
*** and in the Christmas Special his toy piano is versatile enough to sound like a classical piano and a pipe organ in addition.▼
 
== [[Video Games]] ==
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== [[Western Animation]] ==
* ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' has this to the level where [[They Just Didn't Care|they ''obviously'' just did not care]]. There is nothing even remotely accurate about the way any of the characters play any musical instrument. But then, they weren't trying - [[Rule of Funny]] is the single most important element of ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' shorts.
 
== Musicals ==
▲* ''[[Cannibal! The Musical]]'': The conversation at the end of "The Trapper Song" is an aversion. [[Trey Parker and Matt Stone]] obviously know their basic music theory.
▲{{quote|'''Frenchy:'''Nutter was singing in the wrong key!
▲'''Nutter:''' No I wasn't. It was Loutzenheiser. I was singing in E♭ minor.
▲'''Frenchy:''' The song's in F♯ major!
▲'''Bell:''' I think they're the same thing. I mean, E♭ is the relative minor of F♯.
▲'''Frenchy:''' No, it isn't. The relative minor is 3 half-tones ''down'' from the major, not up!
▲'''Noon:''' No, it's 3 down. Like A is the relative minor of C major.
▲'''Loutzenheiser:''' But isn't A♯ in C major?
▲'''Bell:''' Wait, are you singing mixolydian scales, or something?
▲'''Frenchy:''' A# is tonic to C major. It's the 6th!
▲'''Humphrey:''' No it isn't!
▲'''Swan:''' Well, it'd be like a raised 13th if anything. }}
▲** [[Don't Explain the Joke|A#'s enharmonic Bb is in C mixolydian. Props to Bell.]]
▲* In performances of ''You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown'', Schroeder's miniature piano is obviously fake, and an orchestra piano is what's actually playing; some of the notes aren't even possible on a piano the size of his.
▲** Toy Pianos like Schroeder's generally can't play accidentals (Sharps and flats). it's even pointed out in one comic strip that the black keys are just painted on.
▲*** and in the Christmas Special his toy piano is versatile enough to sound like a classical piano and a pipe organ in addition.
 
== [[Real Life]] ==
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