Line #68 Main/ArtisticLicenseMusic


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4	So, you're watching this show where someone appears to be TheCastShowOff, then you notice that their hands aren't matching the notes at all. Sometimes, to the point where they didn't even try. Or, perhaps someone is talking about music and it turns out it's just musical TechnoBabble.
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6	When an author/artist/filmmaker/game designer/etc. tries to create a work featuring musical instruments or music as a plot point and they are not an experienced musician themselves, they will usually lack the knowledge necessary to correctly depict that instrument or how that instrument functions. To people not familiar with music, it doesn't bother them, 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.
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8	This can manifest in a work in three ways:
9
10	* Type 1 is on the performance end, where an actor is playing a performer and is obviously NOT playing it in real life. Sometimes this is [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] for comic effect, and thus BreakingTheFourthWall. May also be ImpracticalMusicalInstrumentSkills, which are usually PlayedForLaughs as well.
11	* Type 2 is on the writing or editing end, where the writer or editor is not familiar with music performance or composition. 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. A good example, most obviously and notoriously, is the use of the phrase 'rising to/reaching crescendo' - crescendo refers to the rising of volume of a piece; it's a process, not a destination.
12	* Type 3 is on the conceptual end, where it's clear that the writing staff doesn't understand music physics and thus has the characters perform or compose things which are not actually possible in real life. Examples include:
13	** Arbitrarily scaling musical instruments up or down in size and then having those scaled models sound just like normal-size instruments. In reality, the pitch of most instruments is proportional to their size. A gigantic guitar wouldn't just be a very loud guitar; the notes that the strings could create would be of different pitches, because the strings would be of different length. (And if the instrument is too large or small, the resultant notes would be at pitches inaudible to the human ear.)
14	** Adding impossible effects or dynamics, such as having a held piano note grow louder over time.
15	** Having an electric guitar (or any other instrument that requires amplification) sound like it's plugged into an amp when it clearly isn't.
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17	Note: Lip-synching does not apply here, because most people know how to lip-synch, and music videos are ([[Music/MilliVanilli almost]]) always the voices of the artist.
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19	See also MusicGenreDissonance. ImpracticalMusicalInstrumentSkills can overlap when it involves playing techniques that are impossible in real life.
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21	----
22	!!Examples:
23	[[foldercontrol]]
24	[[folder:Advertisements]]
25	* Creator/BruceCampbell recorded a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg6bZSM48vU&feature=related commercial for Old Spice]] where he's playing "[[Music/DuranDuran 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. Then again, Old Spice commercials run on RuleOfFunny.
26	[[/folder]]
27
28	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
29	* Both averted and played straight by ''Manga/KOn''. All of the girls play real instruments with real model names made by real companies. However, there are some errors:
30	** A guitar amp will not produce feedback if you unplug a guitar from the amp (unless maybe you unplug it while it's producing sound). It may, however, produce a popping sound. Feedback is much more likely to occur if you plug it in while it is on.
31	** Some of the music does not match up to what type of instrument is played.
32	** And then there's Mugi, who prances around with a 17 kg synth [[SuperStrength as if it weighs nothing]]. This of course has led to [[MemeticMutation memes surrounding Mugi's strength.]]
33	* As with most animated violin-playing, the movement of the bow in the 'Devil's Trill' arc of ''Manga/DescendantsOfDarkness'', which centers around a particularly speedy and hard-to-play piece of music, does not begin to match the sound, and in fact it's completely off the general rhythm. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking He's also holding the thing wrong.]]
34	[[/folder]]
35
36	[[folder:Fanfiction]]
37	* ''Fanfic/{{Divinity}}'': In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4209337/6/Divinity Chapter Six: Uchiha]]'', 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.
38	[[/folder]]
39
40	[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
41	* In ''WesternAnimation/AnimalSoccerWorld'', the band's music consists of a banjo, 3 types of drums, and a violin, but the band is playing a violin, one drum, a cello, and a saxophone. And to put the icing on the cake, the cello-playing donkey tells the violinist cat "only the guitar solo, it is still a problem".
42	* In ''WesternAnimation/FrostyReturns'', when Frosty reveals himself at the winter carnival, right before he sings “Let There Be Snow” he requests a trumpet player to give him a B-flat. But the trumpet player actually plays a G instead. Plus the song is really in G major.
43	* ''WesternAnimation/Shrek2'' has an example that takes liberties with the key of the music - during the scene where Shrek and his friends are StormingTheCastle with Mongo the giant gingerbread man, the Fairy Godmother sings "I Need a Hero" by Bonnie Tyler. She asks for it to be played in C minor, and while this may have been the case in-universe, to viewers and listeners it is actually played in G minor.
44	[[/folder]]
45
46	[[folder:Films -- Live Action]]
47	* ''Film/AugustRush'': Electric guitars without amps, a so-so composition that gets him into Juilliard without the audition process. Generally, the movie did not play well with musicians. August is supposed to be a ChildProdigy, but he strains the WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief by being able to play several instruments with ImpracticalMusicalInstrumentSkills the first time he ever picks them up, and even composing for full orchestra within a few hours of the first time he ever sees music notation, [[HardWorkHardlyWorks before ever studying music theory or orchestration]]. (For reference, those are feats even the likes of Music/WolfgangAmadeusMozart couldn't manage in real life.)
48	* ''Film/{{Bedazzled 2000}}'' (the remake): Brendan Fraser is playing guitar during one of the fantasies, and he has his hand above the capo.
49	* ''Film/{{Drumline}}'': The printed music that comes out of a snare drum solo in the middle of the movie has sharps and flats, despite the fact that a snare drum has ''only one note'' (roughly, "bang"). Though the more ridiculous thing is that there is some sort of magic computer program that can perfectly transcribe what you're playing as you're playing it. No such program exists, or at least, it's not even close to accurate.
50	* ''Film/{{The Parent Trap\|1961}}'': Hayley Mills is not moving her fingers when playing guitar Beethoven's 5th Symphony. Then on "Let's Get Together" her strumming does not match the music (in addition to not moving her fingers).
51	* ''Film/WaitingForGuffman'': In the overture, someone decided to dub in MIDI instruments. This is either a gigantic InJoke to musicians or a fail on behalf of the music editor. It's not {{Lampshaded}}.
52	* Mostly averted by Ralph Macchio in ''Crossroads (1986)'', due to the fact that Steve Fuckin' Vai (who plays the Devil's guitarist Jack Butler) coached him through it. But sharp-eyed guitarists can see several instances where he's off during the guitar showdown with said virtuoso.
53	* ''Film/WalkTheLine'': Waylon Payne (as Music/JerryLeeLewis) is backed by an electric bassist, but an upright bass is heard instead.
54	* ''Film/GroundhogDay'': during the big dance scene at the end, an upright bassist is shown but electric bass is heard.
55	* ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'': In the scene where Eddie Valiant is mingling with the toons at Maroon Studios, he comes across a saxophonist standing next to the enchanted brooms from ''WesternAnimation/{{Fantasia}}''. However, the saxophonist is just swaying his body while playing the saxophone; he isn't even moving his fingers. (Although a toon saxophone probably would be able to play itself.) And, to add insult to injury, it's not even a real sax playing. It's a synth.
56	* In the Canadian film ''Film/HardCoreLogo'', 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.
57	* Kirk Douglas may do his own singing for the song "Whale of a Tale" in the movie ''Film/TwentyThousandLeaguesUnderTheSea'', 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.
58	* In ''Film/GhostWorld'', the actor portraying the guitarist/singer of Blueshammer has never played guitar in his life - this may be StylisticSuck, since they're not supposed to be a very good band in-universe.
59	* In ''Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan'', at the end, when AmazingFreakingGrace is played, James Doohan's fingers do not match the notes being played. For anyone familiar with the bagpipes, this is very, ''very'' obvious, but hardly a drama-breaker.
60	* Dooley Wilson, who played Sam in ''Film/{{Casablanca}}'', was a drummer, not a pianist. It's fairly obvious.
61	* The "banjo boy" character in ''Film/{{Deliverance}}'' is clearly not playing the banjo part of "Duelling Banjos", which in turn is obviously being played on a resonator banjo. Both the banjo AND the guitar have capos, which would not be required for playing in G.
62	* ''Film/EagleEye'' is particularly bad. The final scene involves a group of grade school students playing the national anthem. First, the song is difficult enough that grade-schoolers would almost certainly not be able to play it. Second, they play it absolutely perfectly, despite being children. Third, anyone who plays one of the instruments in question can see that their hand movements are completely random.
63	* In ''Film/TheCompetition'' (1980), Richard Dreyfuss plays a classical pianist facing a last-chance, make-or-break competition. At times while he is "playing," he looks down at the keys as though the hands playing aren't his ... and they're not.
64	* In a unique version of this trope, the titular character of ''Film/MrBeansHoliday'' performs for money by lip-syncing to the opera aria ''Oh mio babbino caro'' while enacting a scene where he plays a woman who is apparently mourning her dead child. The trope comes in here since the show he puts on has absolutely nothing in common with the lyrics of the song which are actually about a girl threatening that she will commit suicide if her father will not accept the man she loves. The scene is played for laughs though, so it is forgivable.
65	* While it is less obvious, in the climactic scene of ''Film/BackToTheFuture1'', Marty is clearly not playing the guitar. It becomes painfully obvious during the solo. Years later, Michael J Fox really did learn Johnny B. Goode and performed it at an event. The guitar tone heard would likewise have been basically impossible to produce using the guitar and amplifier shown. The guitar he borrowed from the band in 1955, did not exist until 1958. The specific version shown did not exist until years later.
66	* A unique sort of Artistic License comes up in ''{{Film/UHF}}'', which threw in the music video for "Money for Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies". Mark Knopfler of Music/DireStraits only allowed the parody on the condition that he would play the lead guitar. Music/WeirdAlYankovic's usual guitarist, Jim West, had worked hard on perfectly imitating Knopfler's original performance; Knopfler himself did not. This is why, unusually for a Weird Al parody, the guitar part sounds quite different from the original song, especially noticeable in the opening riff.
67	* ''Film/CannibalTheMusical'': The conversation at the end of "The Trapper Song" is an aversion. Creator/TreyParkerAndMattStone obviously know their basic UsefulNotes/MusicTheory (Parker was originally a film-scoring major in college, which helps).
68	-->'''Frenchy:''' Nutter was singing in the wrong key!\
69	'''Nutter:''' No I wasn't. It was Loutzenheiser. I was singing in E♭ minor.\
70	'''Frenchy:''' The song's in F♯ major!\
71	'''Bell:''' I think they're the same thing. I mean, E♭ is the relative minor of F♯.\
72	'''Frenchy:''' No, it isn't. The relative minor is 3 half-tones ''down'' from the major, not up!\
73	'''Noon:''' No, it's 3 down. Like A is the relative minor of C major.\
74	'''Loutzenheiser:''' But isn't A♯ in C major?\
75	'''Bell:''' Wait, are you singing Mixolydian scales, or something?\
76	'''Frenchy:''' A# is tonic to C major. It's the 6th!\
77	'''Humphrey:''' No it isn't!\
78	'''Swan:''' Well, it'd be like a raised 13th if anything.
79	* ''Film/{{Eegah}}:'' During a camping trip, Arch Hall Jr. pulls out his acoustic guitar and sings a song. A phantom orchestra and choir can be heard accompanying him.
80	* ''Film/GirlInGoldBoots:'' The final scene is Critter singing and playing an acoustic guitar. Somehow there's a harmonica playing as well, with no visible source.
81	* ''Film/WizardsOfTheLostKingdom2:'' Music from a Medieval-esque string band plays in The Dark One's tavern, but the "band" is actually a lone fiddler. On closer inspection, his bow isn't even touching the strings.
82	* At one point in ''Film/KnifeForTheLadies'', Seth is playing the violin without doing any fingering at all.
83	* In the film ''Film/AmazingGrace'', there's a scene where William Wilberforce sings [[AmazingFreakingGrace the title song]] in a pub, using the familiar tune we all know. In fact, that tune wasn't paired with the text [[NewerThanTheyThink until the 19th century]], a couple hundred years after the events in the film. The original melody that would have been sung in Wilberforce's time is lost to history, so that's probably a {{justified\|Trope}} case.
84	* In ''Film/TheProducers (1968)'', [=LSD's=] backing band onstage for "Love Power" consists of a keyboard, a saxophone, and a guitar, but the song is clearly accompanied by a full orchestra with drums and bass and horns and even an extended ''flute'' solo.
85	* While ''Film/{{Whiplash}}'' is very popular among non-musicians, [[https://youtu.be/SFYBVGdB7MU jazz]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk2_mBCNrPc musicians]] tend to agree that while it gets some details right, there are an awful lot of things it gets wrong:
86	** Fletcher's treatment of Andrew is not something that a jazz teacher in a real school would inflict on a student, because the teacher would know perfectly well that he could get fired for it. [[spoiler:[[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome This comes to bite him in the ass later on.]]]]
87	** The "jazz" that Fletcher plays in the NYC jazz club doesn't even remotely resemble jazz you'd hear in an actual New York City jazz club. This is because composer Justin Hurwitz, on his own admission, had never listened to much jazz before Damien Chazelle played him some.
88	** The scene where Fletcher calls a tempo and insists that Andrew get it ''exactly right'' is not something jazz students get taught, because they don't need to have memorised tempos. What they ''are'' trained to do is keep a consistent tempo. Then again, this may be to highlight Fletcher's draconian teaching methods.
89	** It's next to impossible to punch through a snare drum head. They are designed to withstand being struck repeatedly.
90	** Substitute drummers don't sit on stage behind the core drummer, as Andrew does, waiting for a chance to play something.
91	** Fletcher talks about someone in a band being "promoted" from third trumpet to first trumpet. The trumpet desks in a big band aren't arranged in a hierarchy like that: they have different roles, all of them equally important.
92	** Veteran drummer Peter Erskine is not the only jazz musician to note that hardly anybody in the film seems to actually enjoy music: they treat it more like a brutal competitive sport. The student characters aren't constantly discussing great music they've checked out recently the way actual jazz students do.
93	* In ''Film/TopSecret'', Val Kilmer did his own singing, but in scenes where he's both singing and playing a guitar, it's pretty obvious that he's faking the latter. This is most apparent during "Are You Lonesome Tonight?", which involves an intricately plucked intro and multiple key changes, while Val's character Nick Rivers is shown strumming the same chord the whole song.
94	* ''Film/TheDarkBackward'' seems to lean in on this for comedy. When Gus is frolicking down a trash-bestrewn alley and playing his accordion, he removes his hand from the keyboard and gestures expansively for several seconds, yet the music continues unaffected.
95	[[/folder]]
96
97	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
98	* In ''Series/KidsIncorporated'', the actors aren't really playing the instruments. Ironically, some of the show's cast have gone on to have real-world music careers, though always as singers.
99	* ''Series/{{Bones}}'': In "Death in the Saddle", Dr Brennan says that a birimbao is a "small flute". A birimbao is a stringed percussion instrument.
100	* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "Deja Q", Q ends the episode by appearing with a mariachi band and a trumpet of his own, and then playing it. Problem is, his finger movements both do not match the rhythm of the tones, and do not even match the fingerings that would make the tone in question. Though given it's [[RealityWarper Q]], this could possibly have been an intentional feature.
101	* ''Series/{{Glee}}'':
102	** 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.
103	** ''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.
104	** There's also the case of the Warblers, who are supposed to be an ''a capella'' group. This would be much more believable if half their backing vocals weren't so obviously synthesizers.
105	* Clifford [=DeVoe=] from ''Series/TheFlash2014'' is supposed to be a genius in every field, including music, but he still gets hit with this a few times.
106	** Part of his EstablishingCharacterMoment is telling his wife that he finished Schubert's Unfinished Symphony because he listened to his entire body of work that morning. He's likely being sarcastic when he says it happened in one morning, but saying you could "finish" the symphony is like saying you can build an entire skyscraper because you've looked at every other skyscraper. What he did in his other works is immaterial because no one knows what he was planning to do next, meaning any attempt to finish it is pointless.
107	** During his massacre of the A.R.G.U.S. guards, he's conducting the Hallelujah Chorus (which he's making play in the background InUniverse). However, because the music has to jump around for cinematography reasons, he's conducting to an edited version and it's blatantly obvious that the actor does not know how to conduct music - in a piece written in four, he conducts in both five and two while remaining completely off rhythm. His idea of a cutoff is also about six seconds too long, again for cinematography reasons.
108	* In the show ''Series/OkaasanToIssho'', there's a skit for a music video called ''Rock N Roll Dragon'' that has the hosts pretending to be a rock band. Mitani and Itou are the guitarist and bassist and obviously have no clue how to play, and they don't even fake it (they simply hold the guitars rigidly). Kobayashi behind the skins seems to know what he's doing, though
109	* ''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.
110	* ''Series/ParksAndRecreation'': 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.
111	* Creator/KelseyGrammer's fake piano playing is actually pretty convincing in ''Series/{{Frasier}}'' but if you look closely you can see that it's dubbed. Definitely not {{Lampshaded}}.
112	* The ''Series/HotInCleveland'' episode where the girls form a band seems to have been this trope. It's most obvious for Creator/BettyWhite's character. Are you really gonna make a woman in her eighties hit those drums?
113	* When Montoya plays the violin in the first episode of ''Series/QueenOfSwords'', he just draws the bow across the strings in no particular rhythm, and doesn't even bother moving his fingers.
114	* Type 1 is averted and then played straight in the ''Series/MysteriousWays'' episode "Free Spirit": in the first few scenes of Miranda playing the violin, the finger movements and bow strokes match the music, but when she plays later in the episode she's obviously faking. Since her face is only clearly shown in the later scene, the difference could be explained by the use of a TalentDouble.
115	* An episode of ''Series/{{ER}}'' featured a gifted young violinist. At the end of the episode, he performs a piece - his fingering movements are completely out of sync with the music.
116	* In an episode of ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'', Leonard is playing in a string quartet with the hairs on his bow facing outwards. The bow hair on the string is what makes the sound on the cello. This is doubly surprising given that Johnny Galecki is a trained cellist and is seen using it correctly at least once. Not to mention that after half of the quartet left, he and Leslie practice with just the two of them - and the full quartet's sound. Playing with the wood of the bow instead of the hair (''col legno'') [[RealityIsUnrealistic is used occasionally]] in classical music, so it might have been just one of those pieces...
117	* ''Series/LoveMeLicia'' (the Italian live sequel to ''Manga/AiShiteNight'') [[ZigzaggedTrope zigzags]] this. In the first seasons is mostly played straight (like [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-U4Fbqqg-A musicians' fingers moving incorrectly, or not moving at all]]), but the drummer [[AvertedTrope averts]] this, because he can really play the drums. This trope becomes less evident in later seasons, which mostly feature different band members, and where even the photography evolves to show that yes, this time [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j8sfkUNU6Q the guitar virtuosisms are real]].
118	* Slater from ''Series/SavedByTheBell'' is so good at playing drums that we hear the beats before he even hits the drums.
119	* Although the musical numbers featured on Series/{{Later With Jools Holland}} are notable for not having the artists use prerecorded music or vocals, it doesn't mean that the various effects and session musicians aren't fair game. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpyIk4sFCR0 This]] performance by {{Music/Blur}} not only features a painfully missed cue where lead singer Damon Albarn strikes a pose and waits in vain for the song to start, but also a string section that starts playing a good couple of beats after their parts have started playing.
120	* Often done deliberately by performers on ''Series/TopOfThePops'', in protest at being required to mime. Many an instrument was seen to play itself, without any help from its performer.
121	* A couple times in ''Series/CrazyExGirlfriend''
122	** When Valencia strums the guitar and sings "Women Gotta Stick Together", there's a straight Type 1: Gabrielle Ruiz's right arm keeps perfect time but her left-hand fingers hold the same chord shape throughout the song.
123	** Averted in Greg's song "What'll It Be", where even if Santino Fontana didn't play the opening piano break on the recording, he mimed it perfectly.
124	** Type 1 in the song "Let's Have Intercourse", parodied in that Nathaniel mimes playing guitar for a few moments and then drops it on the floor (with an audible bonk) because he just can't be bothered.
125	* When Right Said Fred performed "I'm Too Sexy" on ''[[Series/{{Pointless}} Pointless Celebrities]]'', the line-up of guitar, bass, and drums (but no keyboards), very obviously didn't match up with almost entirely synthesised backing track. Probably because even Right Said Fred like to invoke RuleOfCool.
126	* ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' loves to make fun when on-screen performers don't match up with the movie soundtrack.
127	** In ''[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S05E06Eegah Eegah]]'', when Arch Hall Jr.'s acoustic guitar song is accompanied by female backing singers: "It's a good thing he brought along the Andrews Sisters."
128	** In ''[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S10E02GirlInGoldBoots Girl in Gold Boots]]'', when Critter sings and plays guitar, with an invisible harmonica accompanying: "I love the way you play the harmonica with your ass." The SOL crew get in on the act themselves in one host segment: Mike plays a sad acoustic guitar song until Crow interrupts to say he made nachos. Mike rushes off to grab some, and the song keeps playing without him.
129	** In ''[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S11E11WizardsOfTheLostKingdom2 Wizards of the Lost Kingdom 2]]'':
130	--->'''Jonah:''' That fiddle player in the back is the real talent. I mean, how's he getting all these sounds from one instrument?\
131	'''Crow:''' And the fiddler's doing all that without even touching the strings! Bravo!
132	* ''Series/ThePartridgeFamily'' did a pretty good job of hiding that not only did none of the fictional family play their on-screen instruments, but only Creator/DavidCassidy and his real-life stepmom Shirley Jones actually sang. That concealment, however, went as far as showing long stretches of performance ''from the rear,'' such as [[https://youtu.be/wJYSu2OVCGM?t=90 this version of their biggest hit.]]
133	* In ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'', when Music/ElvisPresley plays in the church, the actor Luke Bilyk plays some unusual chords that are not what's being heard.
134	* ''Series/HannahMontana'':
135	** Robbie Ray, like Music/BillyRayCyrus, is left-handed, and plays left-handed guitars. However, he has multiple Stratocasters often seen in the background that are right-handed. [[note]] However it is not unusual for left-handed guitarists to own right handed guitars, which they sometimes re-string upside down. Jimi Hendrix famously did so.[[/note]]
136	** Miley always plays properly, but what she plays doesn't always match the audio.
137	* Jim from ''Series/TheAndyGriffithShow''. In his first appearance, he's a talented but struggling street performer playing a dirty archtop acoustic. His playing is clearly overdubbed over with an electric guitar (Andy, who plays a flattop Martin D18 on the show, isn't dubbed over, possibly due to him [[TheCastShowoff already being an accomplished musician]]). While it wasn't uncommon for archtops of the era to include electric guitar pickups, Jim's guitar didn't, nor did he have an amplifier plugged into his instrument. Then after joining a touring rock band, he returns in a later episode, this time with a Fender Jaguar (a proper electric, and in fact Fender's top-of-the-line model at the time before it would be forever overshadowed by the Stratocaster). He's seen performing for the Taylors with his Jaguar, but still without an amp. What makes this especially odd is that the show had real musicians guest star from time to time (most notably the Darlings, portrayed by the real-life bluegrass band The Dillards), and they play their own instruments live.
138	* ''Series/MidsomerMurders'': In "[[MidsomerMurdersS19E6 The Curse of the Ninth]]", the composition being played by violins is called a symphony, which it is not. A symphony is played by a full orchestra, usually in four movements.
139	[[/folder]]
140
141	[[folder:Music Videos]]
142	* Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love". Some people criticized the video because the "musicians" (portrayed by fashion models) were not correctly playing their guitars. Creator/VH1's ''Series/PopUpVideo'' said that a musician was hired to teach the models basic guitar fingering techniques, but "gave up after about an hour and left".
143	* The music video for "If I Die Young" by Music/TheBandPerry has one of Perrys playing the accordion, despite the song not having any accordion parts.
144	* Music/ScatmanJohn's "Scatman (ski-ba-bop-ba-dop-bop)" video has a trumpeter, upright bassist, and drummer in it when all of the instruments are obviously synthesized.
145	* In the video for The Bellamy Brothers' "Old Hippie (The Sequel)", one of them is strumming a resonator guitar. This is doubly wrong; besides the complete lack of said instrument in the song, resonator guitars are usually played horizontally (like a lap steel guitar) or finger-picked, not strummed.
146	* Music/RebeccaBlack's song "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.
147	* 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.
148	* Music/WeirdAlYankovic has often had to mime playing guitar for the various artists he imitates. His fake fingerings are most obvious in the video for "The Saga Begins".
149	* Music/{{Helloween}} lean on the fourth wall while miming playing in their video for ''Halloween'' as the drums keep going after they stop playing on screen, and the band looks around in mock bewilderment.
150	* Jason Derulo's "Talk Dirty." The video features musicians "playing" the (sampled) saxophone solo... on trumpets.
151	* In Trent Tomlinson's "One Wing in the Fire", the angles make it hard to tell whether or not he's faking his piano playing. However, of the three pianists credited on the album, none of them is Trent himself.
152	* In Creator/JeffFoxworthy and Music/AlanJackson's "Redneck Games" (which consists of snippets of a Foxworthy routine on the 1996 Atlanta Olympics set to music, with a sung chorus by Jackson), Foxworthy repeatedly lip-syncs several of Jackson's sung lines.
153	* Billy Squier's PerformanceVideo for "The Stroke" depicts him occasionally playing harmonica during instrumental sections - there's no harmonica in the song, and the part he appears to be miming is clearly played on electric guitar. According to ''Series/PopUpVideo'', this was because while Billy played guitar on the studio recording, the music video's director wanted to depict him as a FreeHandedPerformer for stylistic reasons - the harmonica was a compromise so that Billy could still be shown playing an instrument.
154	* The music video for "In the Summertime" by Mungo Jerry has a couple of examples: one person is strumming an electric guitar, an instrument that does not appear in the song at all, while the piano player's hand movements clearly do not match up to his parts.
155	* Music/CledusTJudd has played with this a few times:
156	** Averted in "Paycheck Woman". Although Judd is not normally a guitarist, his strumming does seem to match up to the chords of the actual song.
157	** Zig-zagged and PlayedForLaughs in "(Weight's Goin') Up Down, Up Down". Again, his rhythm guitar appears to be on par, but his family is standing behind him with bored expressions, barely paying any attention to their instruments (which include a ukulele and hand drum, neither of which is actually in the song).
158	* Numerous music videos by Music/{{Queen}}, such as the videos for "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Somebody to Love", feature bassist John Deacon singing backing vocals with the rest of the band. However, in reality he was the only member of the band who did not sing on their studio albums, though he occasionally sang backing vocals in live performances.
159	* Rae Sremmurd's "Black Beatles", has per the title, an imitation of the RooftopConcert. When the musical backing is all synths.
160	* In the comments for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPgY_1MU9-M this]] [[FilkSong hockey-themed parody of]] "Hey There Delilah", once someone complains about "fake guitar", the singer responds by saying that after many takes of accurate fingering, she decided to not focus on that so she could do better with the more important lip sync and facial expressions.
161	* Among the many [[SoBadItsGood hilariously bad parts]] in Music/{{Journey\|Band}}'s infamous "Separate Ways" video is the [[https://youtu.be/LatorN4P9aA?t=183 instrumental bridge]], where between the acceptable break of a drum kit made of barrels and the guitarist doing his job well, the bassist only taps his instrument, and the keyboardist does a dismissive "slap" [[CameraAbuse towards the camera]], hitting all the keys along the way.
162	* The [[https://youtu.be/xvqeSJlgaNk video]] for "Daydream Believer" by Music/TheMonkees doesn't depict anyone pretending to play the bass or drums, among other instruments. Michael Nesmith plays an acoustic guitar instead of the electric one he played on the recording, and mostly plays something vaguely approximating the song's chord progression regardless of what the electric guitar can be heard doing at any given time.
163	* Parodied out of spite for Music/{{Nirvana}}'s [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s4KXiXVFAI TV appearance]] on ''Series/TopOfThePops''. Before the show, they were told that they would be miming to the original studio backing track and only Kurt's vocals would be live (actually a common practice with the programme). The band were decidedly not happy to hear this, so they intentionally flubbed their performance by playing out of sync (or in some cases, [[SpecialEffectFailure not at all]]) with the track, while Kurt put on his best Music/{{Morrissey}} impression for the vocals.
164	[[/folder]]
165
166	[[folder:Theatre]]
167	* In performances of ''Theatre/YoureAGoodManCharlieBrown'', 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 [[ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}} comic strip]] that the black keys are just painted on. In ''A Charlie Brown Christmas'', his toy piano is versatile enough to sound like a classical piano and a pipe organ (RuleOfFunny is in full effect for the scene in question).
168	* The sound of Roger's acoustic guitar in ''Theatre/{{RENT}}'' is obviously an electric guitar being played offstage; he doesn't even strum the strings.
169	[[/folder]]
170
171	[[folder:Toys]]
172	* Jamzy from ''WesternAnimation/{{Mixels}}'', being a living guitar, is listed as a "Frender Mixocaster", but he resembles a Flying V more.
173	[[/folder]]
174
175	[[folder:Video Games]]
176	* ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong64'': Two of the playable characters' instruments don't sound like their real-life counterparts. Donkey Kong's bongos are much more melodic than real bongos, but it's particularly egregious with Chunky Kong's triangle. It actually makes the sound of a celesta, a completely different instrument!
177	* ''VideoGame/GrandPianoKeys'': The game uses a piano with much fewer notes than a real piano, and the keys don't always match the music. This is done to make the game simpler to play.
178	* ''VideoGame/Onmyoji2016'':
179	** Mōba plays a heavily stylized ''shamisen'' ([[ArtisticLicenseHistory which didn't exist during the time period the game is set in]]) by plucking at the strings by hand.
180	** Apparently Yōkinshi can play a ''guqin'' standing, holding it in one arm while playing with his free hand. [[JustifiedTrope You can't really blame the guy]], because he [[MusicalAssassin fights with the stuff]]. He [[AvertedTrope plays it properly]] when given the chance to sit down.
181	* ''VideoGame/RockBand'' and ''VideoGame/GuitarHero'' avatars are designed by real musicians who took painstaking care in making the avatars come as close as possible to miming the music...it's only noticeable when the song has instruments that aren't in the game design (like banjos) or the drummer is hitting a piece of percussion that's not present in his kit, instead going to the closest facsimile. And of course ghost orchestras, horn sections, etc (although in ''Rock Band 3'' you could chalk them up to samples from the keyboard player).
182	* ''VideoGame/{{Alida}}'' is an obscure ''VideoGame/{{Myst}}'' clone which takes place on an island shaped like a giant guitar. Puzzles involve using large machinery to pluck the 'strings' and thus play the guitar. In real life, a guitar with strings this large would not actually be able to play audible notes.
183	[[/folder]]
184
185	[[folder:Visual Novels]]
186	* ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaV3KillingHarmony'': Kaede Akamatsu, the Ultimate Pianist, [[spoiler:is forced to play "Der Flohwalzer". The majority of the piece is played with black keys, but Kaede only presses white keys that are nowhere close to the keys used to play the piece.]]
187	[[/folder]]
188
189	[[folder:Webcomics]]
190	* Parodied in ''[[Webcomic/{{Mezzacotta}} Lightning Made of Owls]]'' in [[http://www.mezzacotta.net/owls/?comic=538 "The Sound of Failing at Music"]]. After Holly finishes writing a song, Delkin starts criticizing her on various aspects, one of which was that she used the wrong tunings. Holly points out that those aren't even real tunings.
191	[[/folder]]
192
193	[[folder:Web Original]]
194	* WebVideo/AshensAndTheQuestForTheGameChild, when [[Creator/StuartAshen Stuart]] [[ItMakesSenseInContext unlocks the door with a piano]], the paper that he is using for reference reads ABADGH. He actually plays ABABCB and then the highest key, which is marked with an H. As well, him playing a B is taken as incorrect, despite it being a correct note. It's worth noting, however, that H ''is'' a letter used in some musical spellings, where it stands for B-flat. ([[Music/JohannSebastianBach Bach]] naturally took advantage of this to write fugues based on spelling his name on the keyboard.)
195	* {{WebVideo/Googlebrains}}'s background music is literally either flat out copyrighted or a bunch of songs mashed together.
196	* PlayedForLaughs in the companion video to WebVideo/TheKeyOfAwesome's "Somebody That I Used To Know" parody, which had a selection of soft toys and hand puppets sharing a guitar.
197	-->''No-one is in contact with the strings/Yet somehow we can hear everything.''
198	[[/folder]]
199
200	[[folder:Western Animation]]
201	* ''WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfSonicTheHedgehog'': In "[[Recap/AdventuresOfSonicTheHedgehogS01E011SonicsSong Sonic's Song]]:"
202	** It's implied that every time "Sonic's Song" is played on the radio, Catty Carlisle and her band are performing it live. Radio stations typically play pre-recorded music.
203	** When Robotnik is playing the organ, look closely when he sings the line "Robotnik, he's so cool." The animation shows him pressing the keys multiple times, even though the music playing is just two long chords.
204	** Catty says she doesn't know how to play the accordion, but then she plays it perfectly (though it sounds more like a synthesizer than a real accordion.) At the end of the episode, she claims to have gotten better at the accordion, only to suddenly play it terribly.
205	* ''WesternAnimation/TheCupheadShow'': In the first episode, the Devil is shown playing an instrument that has just one keyboard like a piano, and sounds like a piano... except it has stops and pipes like a pipe organ that seem to go completely unused. Most pipe organs are not able to sound like a piano.
206	* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' has this to the level where 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 - RuleOfFunny is the single most important element of ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' shorts.
207	* ''WesternAnimation/JosieAndThePussycats'': The band consists of a guitarist, drummer, and tambourine player. Despite this, the songs clearly use instruments that they shouldn't (and often Valerie's tambourine isn't even present). Eventually subverted with their [[ComicBook/JosieAndThePussycats comic incarnations]]. They're shown with various instruments, and Valerie eventually traded her tambourine for a guitar.
208	* In ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsRainbowRocks'', the human world Rainbow Dash plays an electric guitar as part of the Rainbooms, but at a few points in "Better than Ever" and "Shine Like Rainbows", the sounds the guitar makes often come out as acoustic.
209	* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsFriendshipGames'' features at one point a marching band playing behind Rainbow Dash. All of them are just generically looping while music plays in the background, most {{JustForFun/egregious}}ly being the snare drummer who is completely out of time with the song and is barely moving his sticks while the snare drums of the song are loud and performing complex rhythms.
210	* ''WesternAnimation/RazzberryJazzberryJam'': As much as the show tries to teach kids about music, it still gets quite a few things wrong:
211	** Generally, the notes characters are heard playing don’t correspond to the notes they look like they’re playing, While some level of this is probably necessary due to animation constraints, that doesn’t excuse the times when characters are shown to be playing while their instrument is not heard- or when they’re shown not playing while their instrument is heard.
212	** Billie is very clearly an electric guitar, but is never portrayed as having to be plugged into an amp to play. This could be handwaved as being because she’s an AnimateInanimateObject… except that the guest instrument in “Jazzberries Unplugged” is an electric guitar who ''is'' depicted as needing electricity to play.
213	** Ella’s keyboard has a ''far'' smaller number of keys than an actual piano, although this was probably necessary as depicting her with the proper amount (88) would make her nigh-impossible to animate.
214	** Stringed instruments are generally depicted with fewer strings than they actually have. Sometimes this is necessary (imagine how hard Persephone The Harp would be to animate if she had all 47 strings), but usually it’s just stupid- Billie has three strings out of a guitar’s 6, and RC has two (out of 4).
215	** Xavier the “xylophone” has metal keys, which would actually make him a glockenspiel (xylophone keys are made of wood). All of his keys are also all the same size, despite the fact that real xylophone/glockenspiel keys are different sizes because each size produces a different pitch.
216	** In “Super Sounds”, Ella is able to pop her soundboard out of her “head” and play her strings like a harp. Needless to say, real pianos do not work like that at all.
217	** Egregiously, despite [[EverythingIsAnInstrument the musical saw]] being the featured instrument of “Phantom Of The Jam”, not a single note played on an actual saw is heard (except in the live-action segments); instead, the supposed “saw noises” are produced either by a theremin or by a vocal imitation (read: some guy going “[=OOOOOOooooOOOOO=]”).
218	* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformers'' features a scene with a marching band, with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O649eh771J4 the show's "Military parade" BGM]] repurposed as the music they're playing. The animation and the music are blatantly mismatched, with the most obvious example being the flute section at the beginning being apparently played by ''trumpets''.
219	* On ''WesternAnimation/TheBeatles'' cartoon, this goes through the wringer due to its low budgets. As Music/{{John\|Lennon}}, Music/{{Paul\|McCartney}} and Music/{{George\|Harrison}} play their stringed instruments, there are no guitar picks used. The strings and frets aren't even seen on many longs shots. In any recorded song where one Beatle is singing with overdubs, all four of them are shown singing ("Mr. Moonlight" is especially egregious--John's opening is coming out of Paul). In the episode for "Eleanor Rigby", the band can somehow mimic an entire string section with just two guitars and a bass.
220	* In ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'', Plagg reveals himself able to play the piano. Being a tiny fairy, he can only hit one key at a time, but chords are heard regardless.
221	* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'':
222	** In "Naughty Nautical Neighbors", Squidward's "Solitude in E Minor" is not in E minor. It is impossible to tell what key it is in, as there are only two notes (C and F, respectively). And when [=SpongeBob=] asks Squidward to "give him an A", he plays A sharp/B flat. In addition, [=SpongeBob=] claims the instrument he plays is a "bassinet", when really, there's no such thing and he's actually playing a ''double bass''. Though [[DreadfulMusician SpongeBob shows to be terrible at the instrument regardless]], so it could just be ignorance on his part.
223	** In "The Paper", [=SpongeBob=] claims he can play the song "Mary Had a Little Lamb" in A minor, but he actually plays it in C major. Though he technically may be right, as C major is parallel to the A minor scale.
224	* In ''WesternAnimation/PeppaPig'' the episode "Chloe's Big Friends" says that "reds" and "greens" exist as music genres, when they obviously don't.
225	* ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfJimmyNeutronBoyGenius'': The episode "Man At Work" has Hugh pull a guitar out of thin air to sing the Taco Shack theme song. He is somehow accompanied by a full band behind him despite it only being him and his guitar.
226	[[/folder]]

Context Main / ArtisticLicenseMusic