Scotty McCreery. Taylor Hicks. Kevin Skinner. Chris Daughtry. Crystal Bowersox. Phillip Phillips? Your name? It really could happen. You know you’ve got the talent-but how do you impress the judges and give yourself an ‘edge’ over the other contestants?
One thing the names above do have in America’s Got Talent common is all of them started out playing live music and honing their skills before the auditions. Oh, and they all play acoustic guitar! Taylor is more of a harmonica player, but he plays guitar, too. One the latest most impressive contestants Phillip Phillips, auditioned With his acoustic guitar. Crystal Bowersox wowed the judges and the crowd with her soulful voice and acoustic guitar skills. Scotty played guitar on most of his performances, too. See a pattern? Hmmm… live music, acoustic guitar… a winner’s edge?
That’s exactly right. If you watch the episodes of any of these competitions, you’ll see these guys (and girls) constantly outperform the other contestants. Why? Because, in many cases, that live playing experience, playing live music for a while before the audition taught them many things about expression, entertaining, singing properly, and more–things they wouldn’t have learned otherwise. And there’s just something about acoustic guitar that people love. Maybe it’s the thought of a campfire, singing songs and eating marshmallows. I don’t know. But the acoustic guitar is obviously something people love to hear, and watch.
Chris Daughtry didn’t even win American Idol, but he had a good deal of live music experience, plays guitar, and he has now sold Millions of music downloads! Kevin Skinner, 2009 MILLION DOLLAR winner of America’s Got Talent won with what… an acoustic guitar and a great song. People are starting to realize that playing live acoustic guitar shows is a great way to train before you audition for American Idol, X Factor USA, etc. It is through live performance that you find out who you really are as an individual musician or artist–and that individuality is a key factor in both contestant and winner selection. And now, singer / songwriter / acoustic guitarist Phillip Phillips, is our latest winner of American Idol!
There definitely seems to be a pattern here. You can look at these contestants and winners and see that, other than individuality, they were successful in the competitions because they all had talent, searched out the right information, worked hard, had live music experience, and… they all found that their acoustic guitar skills gave them an edge, that extra something. If you don’t currently play an instrument, again, that’s OK, you can still get someone to play with you and give yourself an edge with live music skills. And for that extra edge, you might consider learning to play guitar. For more information, see the author box below.