Miming In Instrumental Performance

Miming in instrumental performance or finger-synching is the act of musicians pretending to play their instruments in a live show, audiovisual recording or broadcast. Miming in instrument playing is the musical instrument equivalent of lip-syncing in singing performances, the action of pretending to sing while a prerecorded track of the singing is sounding over a PA system or on a TV broadcast or in a movie. In some cases, instrumentalists will mime playing their instruments, but the singing will be live. In some cases, the instrumentalists are miming playing their instruments and the singers are lip-synching while a backing track plays. As with lip-synching, miming instrument playing has been criticized by some music industry professionals and it is a controversial practice.

Not all miming is criticized; when a band appears in a music video, there are often no microphones on the stage and the guitars are not plugged in. With music videos, it is generally accepted that the audience is not seeing the band playing live (the exception is live concert videos).

Miming instrument playing is mostly associated with popular music and rock music performances in huge venues, TV broadcasts, music videos and films. However, there are cases where classical chamber music groups (e.g. A string quartet) or orchestras have mimed playing their instruments while a prerecorded track of the music sounds over a PA system or on a TV broadcast or film.

Terminology

The miming of the playing of a musical instrument also called ''finger-synching'', is analogous lip-synching.

Examples

Classical music

Alfred Schnittke has the soloist mime a "cadenza visuale" in his Violin Concerto No. 4 twice, and George Crumb has all 3 players mime in Vox Balaenae for special effect.

A notable example of miming includes John Williams' piece at US President Obama's inauguration, which was a recording made two days earlier, then played back over speakers and mimed by musicians Yo-Yo Ma (cello) and Itzhak Perlman (violin). The musicians wore earpieces to hear the playback.

On February 10, 2006, Luciano Pavarotti appeared during a performance of the opera aria " Nessun Dorma" at the 2006 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Turin, Italy, at his final performance. In the last act of the opening ceremony, his performance received the longest and loudest ovation of the night from the international crowd. Leone Magiera, the conductor who directed the performance, revealed in his 2008 memoirs, ''Pavarotti Visto da Vicino'', that the performance was prerecorded weeks earlier. As the recording played during the broadcast, " e orchestra pretended to play for the audience, I pretended to conduct and Luciano pretended to sing. The effect was wonderful," he wrote. Pavarotti's manager, Terri Robson, said that the tenor had turned the Winter Olympic Committee's invitation down several times because it would have been impossible to sing late at night in the sub-zero conditions of Turin in February. The committee eventually persuaded him to take part by pre-recording the song and miming during the broadcast.

Classical singing group Il Divo appeared in 2012 with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, but "...what the audience heard over the sound system was not the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra" playing live; it was "prerecorded audio tracks by an entirely different orchestra" that sounded over the speakers. The real "...orchestra was relegated to the role of visual window dressing", as the players pretended to play in "pantomime."

Popular music

United Kingdom

When the Beatles performed on the TV show '' Thank Your Lucky Stars'' in 1963, the guitar and bass were not plugged in and there were no microphones on the stage, so the band was miming their instrument playing and lip-syncing the vocals.

Initially, bands performing on the UK TV show ''Top of the Pops'' mimed to the commercially released record, but in 1966 after discussions with the Musicians' Union, miming was banned. After a few weeks during which some bands' attempts to play live were somewhat lacking, a compromise was reached whereby a specially recorded backing track was permitted as long as all of the musicians on the track were present in the studio. The TOTP Orchestra, led by Johnny Pearson, augmented the tracks when necessary. This setup continued until 1980, when a protracted Musicians' Union strike resulted in the dropping of the live orchestra altogether and the use of prerecorded tracks only. This accounts for a number of acts who never appeared on the show because of their reluctance to perform in this way.

Highlights have included Jimi Hendrix who, on hearing someone else's track being played by mistake (in the days of live broadcast), mumbled "I don't know the words to that one, man," a drunken performance of "Fairytale of New York" by Shane MacGowan of the Pogues, a performance of " Roll with It" by Oasis

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