Lip-syncing and using voice double
On March 18, local singers Minh Hang and Minh Quan who joined together to compete with other pairs of artists, gave an incredible singing and dancing performance of the famed musical “The Phantom of The Opera”.
Their performance has raised a public debate since many people say the vocal in the performance was not of Minh Hang, who is known for teenage pop songs and who is believed to be unable to hit high notes.
At the beginning, the voice sounded like Minh Hang’s but the chorus turned so strange that audience could not believe Hang was singing.
Few days later, people went more confused when singer Lan Anh - the 2011 National Opera and Chamber music competition’s winner who used to perform the musical successfully - confirmed that the vocal at high notes in Minh Hang’s performance was hers.
“Listening to the highest note, I can confirm that’s my voice,” Anh added.
Responding to the incident, on March 21, Cat Tien Sa Media and Television Company, the show’s organizer explained via a press release that Hang and Quan planned to lip-sync on their own recorded vocals to ensure the performance’s quality.
This even made the audience angrier. They earlier thought the performance was live.
“They should respect their audience, it was cheating!” a netizen expressed his feeling.
However, the organizer added singer Minh Hang was innocent and blamed that singer Minh Quan himself used Lan Anh’s voice to replace Minh Hang’s singing at some high notes without informing her.
Unacceptable method
Commenting about the incident, musician Quoc Trung said it’s a must to ask for singer Lan Anh’s permission before using her voice as well as to announce to the audience about the voice switching.
“Cheating audiences over the excuse of ensuring the show’s quality is unacceptable,” he added.
According to the musician, local singers seem to take lip-syncing for granted and usually perform that way with the excuse of ensuring their performance’s quality.
“I’ve heard much about singers who cannot sing high notes using other singers’ voice for the hard part and then just lip-sync to the recorded music,” Trung shared.
Meanwhile, singer Lan Anh who is also a vocal instructor at the Vietnam National Academy of Music in Hanoi, said a safe method to make performances perfect is to keep practicing.
“It is a lesson to learn,” she shared. “It requires time and effort to be a good singer,” she added.
For his part, singer Minh Quan admitted his fault in using Lan Anh’s voice without permission and without announcement. Quan has sent an apology to Lan Anh.
However, Minh Hang has not given any comment about the case.
“Lip-syncing is unacceptable, using other singer’s voice is even more unacceptable. I’m more and more disappointed with Minh Hang,” a netizen wrote on YouTube.