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Health & Fitness

There and Back Again...An American Idol Contestant's Tale. pt. 5

The last installment of the 5-part American Idol series.

In my last post, I had recounted how I had been accepted into the top 24 contestants of the 2006 season of American Idol.  This will be the last post in this series, after which I will begin posting regularly on various topics and sources of interest. And now, to finish the tale. 

My mom and I arrived in Beverly Hills, CA to a luxury hotel. The best "luxury" element of the entire hotel (and perhaps all of L.A.) was the tempurpedic bed that awaited me every night. So comfortable. We, the contestants, had some meetings, one of which was all about how we were celebrities now and that our lives would never be the same.

Looking back, it was a bit dramatic, but at the time it seemed like life-altering, earth-shattering news. We were settled in soon enough and off to the daily press circuits each morning to answer the same seven questions over and over to various TV stations. I don't want to cast this in a negative light. It was actually a good deal of fun :), but a bit repetitive is all.  One of my favorites was this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCP-hTY110E. It was definitely different. Taylor was pretty mad after this interview, and almost punched the guy as I recall. 

After a good deal of press circuitry, we began rehearsing for the actual show.  Contestants received one hour of vocal coaching per week. This was incredibly intimidating at first, but the coaches were very easy to work with. I learned a good deal from them. 

Fast forward to the night of my first "live" performance. The first few shows were taped, just to be sure that nothing horrendous happened on the technical side of things before going live later in the season. For the first live performance, I had chosen to sing "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" a la Michael Buble.

Ok, brief interlude. I actually met Michael Buble while I was in the TV studio one day. He was there to sing for "Dancing with the Stars," and happened to walk right in front of me. I introduced myself and he was very interested in my being on Idol. He was one of the nicest celebrities that I met during the whole Idol experience. Will Smith was pretty cool as well. I met him at the Nick Kid's Choice Awards during a commercial break. Great guy, though I was a little let down by his handshake, which turned out to be weak sauce. He could have just been having an off-day though. ANYWAY, back to the story. 

The First Song:

The day of the first performance we had a dress rehearsal, which I thought went very well. However, just before the rehearsal was over I told the band to raise the key of the song a half step from D to E flat (if that means nothing to you, no worries). They said "no problem" and I was on my merry way. Three hours later, Ryan Seacrest gives my intro and I walk on stage to perform for the very first time, a bit nervous and excited. The music began and I started to sing. Three seconds in I knew something was terribly wrong. By the way, I am not recounting the performance that was never aired. I sounded wretched. Everyone in the building knew it. The question was "why"? What was happening? My mind flooded with possible solutions to correct-course and get back on track, but every second sounded worse and worse. This lasted about twenty seconds or so. I almost simply stopped singing. It was then that the stage manager actually stopped the entire performance and walked on stage. She said to me "it wasn't your fault David...you're back on in 5...4...3...2..." and walked off the stage.

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"What?!! What does that mean?!" That's what was going through my mind as the intro music started playing again. I recovered as best I could and then began singing, oblivious as to the reason why the show had just stopped and restarted. I chalked it up to them giving me another chance because I was so awful. I sang the song again, and though it was not an absolute train wreck, it was forced and awkward. So what did actually happen? Later on, after I was voted off, I found out that half of the band forgot to make a note in their music to change the key after dress rehearsal. As a result, half the band was playing in D, and another half was playing in the key of E flat. This creates dissonance, which made it impossible for there to be any "right" note to be singing. Thus ended my first night of the live performance portion.

Pretty discouraging.

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The next night, I survived the voting and made it through to week #2. At this point, I still had no idea about the whole key signature debacle. Therefore, I was convinced that something was wrong with my ability to match pitch. I remember carrying around a pitch pipe with me all week, obsessing over the first note of my new song "The Way You Look Tonight." I would play the pitch, sing it back, play it again, sing it back again, etc... all week.

When it came time for me to sing for the second time, I was too nervous and pitch-obsessed to deliver any real kind of musical performance. It was static and boring.  All of the judges comments were true, which were mostly negative, and I was rightly voted off the show the following day. I was given a chance to sing one last time after being voted off. This was special because all of the contestants came down from the "Coke" room and put their arms around me for the final chorus of the song. I made sure to wait until after the cameras had gone to commercial before I showed any emotion.

I didn't plan on crying, but it happened regardless as I was saying goodbye to some of the contestants that I had become good friends with. 

The next day I did a brief FOX press circuit, interviewing all morning with different stations from across the country. It was fun and all, but I was ready to go home.  That night, I took the red eye home with my mom. I remember walking into the O'Hare airport with a hat and sunglasses on at around four in the morning. I plopped down in a chair, and as I was waiting for my mom, I noticed a teenage girl staring at me with a blank look of astonishment on her face out of the corner of my eye just before she gathered herself and hurried off.  That was kind of funny.

I was recognized in most public places for a while after everything was over. I have said on a few occasions since that I didn't like being "famous." Maybe it would still be true now, but after thinking about it I'm not sure that being "famous" was what bothered me. Ever since American Idol has ended, I have been congratulated and recognized graciously by many people. I have been blessed with countless opportunities, and have had great experiences that I owe to being on the show.  Even today, I am sometimes introduced positively as David Radford, the guy who was on American Idol.

However, each of these introductions has usually served as a reminder to me of the less than average performances that I gave during the live show. Therefore, part of me cringes when I receive recognition, because I know I didn't perform that well. 

On a lighter note, I would like to say that since Idol, I have been blessed beyond measure with opportunities that I would never have been offered had it not been for the show (like being asked to blog here, for instance), and in no way do I want this to be taken as a complaint against American Idol. They were wonderful, and treated me very well during the entire show. 

What now? After the show ended, I began song-writing (http://www.davecradford.com/music/Music.html). I received a degree from the University of Illinois in Choral Music Education and had an amazing college experience. I now teach voice lessons, guitar, and song-writing in Crystal Lake, and perform locally at Exclusively Napa Wine Bar (located in downtown Crystal Lake) every Thursday and select Saturdays. I love my life, and I love my job.

More posts to come soon, except they will be more about life in real time.

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