Is humming looked down upon or interpeted as cheating?

**Echelar** · Joined: 26 Feb 2006 Posts: 1246 Location: Fort Wayne, IN

If all the game measures is that you're on pitch, and you're on pitch, I don't see how we can call it cheating. It might not be very personally rewarding, but I doubt we'll try to "stop" it.
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**Evster** · Joined: 09 Feb 2007 Posts: 637 Location: Pittsburgh, PA

It says right in the instructions to hum the right pitch if you don't know the words and "wing it!"

So definitely not cheating.
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**saxuallyAPeasing** · Joined: 28 May 2007 Posts: 2975

I tried playing a recorder for the vocal part of War Pigs on medium, worked rather well (except when I was laughing too hard for me to play). Next time my friends and I have a video camera I'll try to record it.
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**muna** · Joined: 04 Jun 2007 Posts: 2929 Location: South Florida

**Nickisimo** · Joined: 21 Sep 2007 Posts: 774 Location: Charleston, SC

I find humming to be easier in a lot of spots, particularly sections with a lot of very short pieces that are at the same pitch or very close, like in Dani California or Blitzkrieg Bop. I try and sing for the most part, but I find humming eliminates some of the lag and thus makes it easier to max out ratings on some sections.

That's maybe the biggest difference between Expert Vocals and all other difficulties. On Expert, you're really much more interested in manipulating the system than actually singing the song, which is kinda sad, but it's still fun. I mean, I FC'd Paranoid online yesterday and I had one of the guy's laughing because I was screwing up the words(not a song I listen to) and still getting Awesome ratings by singing the wrong words at the right pitch.

"Think I'll lose my mind if hmm-hmm-hmm-hmm-hmm all the time..." AWESOME

As opposed to I'm So Sick:
"I will breaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak!"
MESSY

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**Whitecross** · Joined: 18 Nov 2007 Posts: 73

not cheating. just boring to me.

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**4degrees** · Joined: 15 Jun 2007 Posts: 39

I don't think it's cheating if your playing at home. But I don't think it would go over as well in a tournament.
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**muna** · Joined: 04 Jun 2007 Posts: 2929 Location: South Florida

You can also play vocals on guitar. I put absolutely no work and by just sliding my hand across the fretboard on the A string while strumming, I passed Paranoid on medium.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj0f4-SFyAY

I had to play clean so when I did try to immitate the song, it sounded strange.
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**dreamaddict** · Joined: 28 Mar 2007 Posts: 844 Location: Renton, WA

Years ago, when I took vocal lessons from a true master of vocals, the first thing he had me do was hum. Before working on the vowels, before consonants and enunciation, and breath control, the first step was to hum, because you can still practice all of the other fundamentals without using words. So there is where humming actually places in the realm of real singing.
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**iagomonk** · Joined: 16 Oct 2007 Posts: 1045 Location: Lynnwood, WA

There's some wanker on Youtube (isn't there always)... who programs his keyboard to play the tones to pass vocals on songs.

Whatever gives you enjoyment, I guess.

**Nickisimo** · Joined: 21 Sep 2007 Posts: 774 Location: Charleston, SC

It certainly seems to be considered as cheating, but if you stop and think about it, if humming is such an effective cheating tool, why are there so few people over 10 million on XBL? Seems to me like in order for humming to be at all effective, you have to be pretty good at Vocals in the first place. I'm not trying to say that it's okay for Vocalists to hum an entire song or anything, because I think that does detract from what the game is supposed to be, but it really doesn't make much sense to me. Suppose you can hum through Dani California on Expert and get an FC. If you substituted the actual lyrics to the song for the humming, you'd also get an FC.

What people seem to have a problem with is the idea that a lot of the time it's necessary to mix singing and humming to get good scores on Expert. Between the lag and the nature of the Vocal engine, it's very tough on most songs to sing cleanly(like you would if you were at a Karaoke bar) and get the results you want. I can do it on a few songs, but not many. I'm pretty sure if everyone who had negative opinions on the subject actually tried their hand at Expert Vocals, the whole matter would be cleared up.
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**youhas** · Joined: 21 Jul 2006 Posts: 3015 Location: Santa Clara, CA

**Jansin** · Joined: 16 Jan 2008 Posts: 10

Not cheating, just lame.