Do you ever wonder how the likes of Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Ashlee Simpson can dance around and sing a song almost perfectly? The reason they can bounce around, and be out of breath and keep that perfect pitch is due to something called audio dubbing, also known as lip-synching.

Saturday Night Live (SNL) is known for off the wall musical performances; Ashlee Simpson joins the ranks of intriguing SNL performances, including Sinead O’Connor and Eminem. Ashlee’s band went into the wrong song and the singer looked quite confused. She was singing the wrong lyrics. Simpson stopped singing and lowered her microphone and the vocals could still be heard for another song.

Ashlee proceeded to do a jig and quickly run off stage, becoming the first performer in SNL history to leave the stage a mere 40 seconds into her performance.

Audio dubbing is not as uncommon as you may think. Many artists use backing vocals when playing live, ranging from Kiss to Madonna, from Christina Aguilera to Britney Spears. People pay to hear the record when they go to a major act’s show; also it is hard to hear yourself sing when playing live. Therefore, audio dubbing is used to help the artist hit the notes they hit in the studio. It is also not just always on vocal tracks-many bands who use multiple guitars, basses and other instruments in the studio but can’t have them all on stage use it as well, to ensure that they capture that studio sound.

This is a useful tool for artists who want to perform songs the way they sound on record. But in the wrong hands, such technology can be greatly misused and abused. For example, Milli Vanilli, who were not even using their own voices when they were performing.

When it comes down to it, it is a matter of principal of what one feels is OK for a vocalist to do. I personally think that if a singer’s voice can hit the notes in the studio, then they should be able to hit them when they are playing live. Although to be fair, it can be hard to hit these notes when you can barely hear yourself singing. What it finally comes down to is the morals of the artist and the record label.