Like millions of other Americans, I spent my teen years completely enthralled with the American Idol series. To most, this show represents the chasing of dreams with a (mostly) fearless attitude and an inspiring level of determination and courage.
When the American Idol tour bus landed on Ole Miss turf on Tuesday – its last of 11 stops nationwide – many students sprinted straight from class to audition in their attempts to follow these dreams. As one Ole Miss student put it, “It’s just really cool to have this sort of opportunity. Especially right here in Oxford!”
As I stood on the side watching many of my friends and fellow students belting out their hearts and souls, I realized that most of them weren’t treating the auditions as if their dreams completely depended upon them, but rather chose to treat them as dream-strengtheners – no matter the outcomes.
This is what prompted me to audition myself.
Now, I have never taken a voice lesson in my life; however, I do treat myself to the occasional one-woman concert when I’m driving on a highway for many hours alone. This occurs only when I am alone. I would like to emphasize that. But my audacious cohorts’ roll-with-the-punches attitude put me at ease for the judgment.
Sign up sheet in hand and now stepping up at precisely 4:59 p.m. (auditions closed at 5), I signed my name and approached the 2-judge lion’s den named “audition.”
These judges were made up of a select group of the show’s producers who were in charge of deciding who had what it took to continue to the next round of arena auditions. I was situated next to three other hopefuls and began imagining standing on the famous (and at times infamous) American Idol stage in LA. Really I was standing on the cement outside of the Student Union that I cross over every day on my way to Psychology.
This place was safe.
This place was my home.
American Idol was in my territory now, and I wasn’t about to let them scare me out of crooning a Michael Bublé song. Confidently, I chose “Home.”
Everything seemed to be going well as the first notes emerged from my mouth. However, things quickly went south when my voice cracked not once, but twice, and I hit the sort of bass clef notes James Earl Jones (Darth Vader) could not even dream of hitting.
In that moment, my brain came down from the LA stage in California. In that moment, I just wanted to run back to Farley Hall (my communications department) and hide in a computer lab. Room 232 sounded fantastic in that moment.
But I couldn’t run to Farley Hall, because that would’ve been strange to do. So I stood there, and I thanked them for their time, and I said “next.”
I stepped back beside my fellow hopefuls and realized those voice cracks weren’t really the end of the world after all. I had tried something I always wanted to do. I failed epically. But it was done. I actually had a great sense of Bucket List satisfaction.
Though no one from my group made it to the next round, some contestants sang like angels and were awarded musical halos – also known as their plane tickets to the next round. One nursing student completed the second-Tent-Challenge, gave a short on-camera verbal bio and sang a piece of a song. These fragments of face-time will most likely appear on the show when it upstarts next year.
Though there was joy for the champions of the day, there was also hope for the underdogs. John Michael, a 15-year-old high school student who traveled from Grenada, MS to Oxford for the audition, unfortunately did not make it to the next round. But, in his words, “I’m not going to let anyone decide the worth of my music. I think that’s up to me and where I want to take it.”
With this quote, I feel that John Michael really captured the essence of the whole event.
Of the hundreds of people who came here to give themselves and the show a chance, some made it to the next round, and some are figuring what “the next round” is for them. Witnessing this event from the outskirts of barricade tape and then participating in it (last minute) I learned a great deal about the human qualities of determination but also resilience. We are all always going to have goals and dreams, and we will not always meet or accomplish them all.
Thankfully, however, the human race can recover from disappointment and still be happy for those who did make it. In the end, I believe that all of the American Idol-ers of Oxford seized the day.
