Have you ever laughed at the idiots on American Idol who forgot the words to a song they had to learn? I mean, they got all the way to Hollywood, had a shot at fame and fortune, and blew it all because they forgot the words to a song!
I used to think that myself (heck, last year I underestimated Chris Sligh because he got cut for forgetting the words to an Elvis song in Memphis!). This year I learned exactly how hard it perform a song with limited prep, and started to sympathize with folks who screw up a limited prep performance. After all, it happened to me.
The thing is, most people think, "I can sing along to a radio song after ten minutes and I'm not an aspiring pro singer!" Even before my experience I knew the fault in that logic. It takes a lot more work for a professional to prep a piece for an acapella performance as a lead vocalist, because we have to worry about many subtleties that the amateur karaoke singer isn't even aware of. (And it's addressing these subtleties that takes a lot more time.) So I knew in Birmingham 2006 that it takes hours to prep a pro piece. (And I prepped that piece successfully. It turns out the judges decided not to have us sing what we prepared, but it was fun to have the adrenaline rush of that experience.) But I learned in Omaha 2007 that I couldn't do a Darkwinner-ian perforamance of a piece after 2 hours of rehearsal.
For my Omaha Idol audition call back, I had 6 hours to prepare on site "Stuck in the Middle with You (which I had 6 hours to prepare on site.) I knew that would take hours (but I also knew I could do it, after all, I had prepped a piece in Birmingham the year before.)
It took me an hour to rough out the melody for "Stuck in the middle with you." (In Birmingham, I had to learn "Simply the Best" which had an augmented fifth - (not a dominant fifth, as my adrenaline addled brain inititally thought, but coudn't figure out why it wasn't sounding quite right.) Side note: I suspect that the whatever Elvis song that was assigned in Memphis (and Chris Sligh didn't learn) wasn't a simple catchy tune, it probably had a similiar subtle melodic trick. The trick for "Stuck" was that it was in A minor... not C major. (It's not a particularly bluesy song- that coupled with the adrenaline left me puzzled for a while about why the song wasn't making any sense!)
It took me another hour to perfect the melody. (Tedious yes, but details are important.) It took me another hour to arrange the melody so it works acapella, and reflects my original musical spirit (instead of just regurgitating the song.) I then have 2 hours to rehearse my arrangement, and then an hour of "quiet time" waiting in the hall before seeing the judges.
Towards the end of my prep time, I am able to sing all the way through the (newly optimized for my style) piece. I am also more exhausted (the adrenaline rush came when I was frantically trying to work out the piece, now that I knew what I was doing, the lack of sleep exhaustion was asserting itself with renewed vigor.)
While waiting to go before the judges, I run through the song successfully in my head. I had 2 hours to rehearse a minute's worth of music, I should be able to pull it off.
So Ken (the Exec Producer) asked me to sing "Stuck in the middle with you" and I start off okay. I do my Darkwinnerian performance sensing that I was starting off well, connecting with the room. There's a blip. (Looking back, it might be because I change "your friends all come CRAWLling to "your friends come CALLing - and the room thought I forgot the words. Nope, I intentionally changed CRAWL to CALL to strengthen the alliteration with come and internal rhyme with all - my style is to simplify peices, and my interpretation was less deragotory so didn't need images of crawling friends...)
So there's a blip, which throws me off a bit, so my next notes are a bit more off, and I'm losing more audience connection, and suddenly I'm making up words and ending in a different key!
I didn't "crack under pressure." I didn't feel particularly nervous, and I learned in Birmingham I can keep cool even when things go disasterously wrong. And I didn't "forget" the lyrics because of a bad memory. (I memorize mucho stuff in school, and seem to have a facility for quoting back entire conversations with exact words without even trying...) And the bad performance wasn't because I didn't spend enough time on the piece. (The only breaks I took were to rest my voice/get away from the piece and see if I remembered it, starting cold a few minutes later.)
The words didn't come out because I wasn't thinking about the words, just trusting that they would come automatically. It was arrogant of me to think I could get a piece automatic within 2 hours of rehearsing. I should have just treated the recital in front of Ken as a rehearsal (where I am thinking about what words/notes come next) instead of as a performance (where I'm thinking about connecting with the audience.)
On the other hand, I had never performed a piece after 2 hours of rehearsal before, so how was I to know my limitations in that arena? (Sure, I'd heard it's better to practice piano for one hour spread over 4 days (15 minute sessions) than to do one marathon hour of practice the day before the recital. But I had never had opportunity to test that theory myself...until Omaha)
If I had a South Carolina callback next week, I know I would have learned from my Omaha experience to deliver the piece satisfactorily (don't connect, just notes and words...) If I only had 10 minutes of prep time (like the people in the front rows did.) I would have been able to regurgitate the song. And if I had made it to Idol top 10, I could so give a Darkwinner-ian performance if I got a song that morning - assuming whoever arranged the song actually had sheet music written out and arranged for my voice, so I could spend the full 6 hours rehearsing, instead of just the last 2.
I'm not ashamed that when I was given 6 hours to prep a piece, I spent 4 hours trying to prepping the piece to make the end performance as good as possible. (Without any counter-reasons, I will always choose to give the best performance I could.)
What does suck is that I finally got one real shot at fame and fortune and wasn't experienced enough to know my limitations. I keep hoping the phone will ring, and someone will say "Ken reconsidered, and he'd like you to come to Round 3 in Omaha after all." or "Nigel was upset that Ken cut you without consultation, Nigel would like you to come to Round 2 in South Carolina."
Right now my story ends with "I got cut because I forgot the words to a song" and that's just not how I want my last "fame and fortune" experience to be before I buckle down for adult responsibilities....