Seasons Six Through Nine of American Idol

By Dennis Duncan

As tons already know, American Idol is a cultural phenomenon. I know this first hand because I worked on the show during seasons 6-9.

What I am desiring to do is give you insight on how American Idol works. More than anything, I am sharing with you first hand enlightenment of how a portion of the American Idol machine functions that very few people are aware of.

My job on American Idol was working one on one with the contestants producing, engineering and recording their vocals for the full length downloads. I was also responsible for producing, recording, editing and uploading the Idol performance show ring tones to the Fox/AT&T servers for seasons six through nine that many of you probably purchased. It's hard to keep track, but during any given week of Idol I played an integral role in about 3-6 Top 10 Billboard & Itune hits every week and selected every ringtone download weekly for every for four seasons straight.

Now, you probably won't find my name associated with any of the top ten hits or ringtones nor will you discover my name when they roll out the credits from the show. In television, film and music, there is what they refer to as "above the line" and "below the line". The big name producers are "above the line" and guys like me fell "below the line". Many others received credit for my individual professional endeavors. Not a big deal as that is just how the industry functions and I am accepting of that. I was comfortable to be part of the cultural phenomenon of this TV show called American Idol. I'll get in to the details more about Idol in later blogs but for this article I want to share with you my experience that lead me to Idol because it was from this path and the experiences as a major label recording artist & subsequent producer that equipped me to work with the contestants. At the core of my experiences, my back story isn't any different from plenty of of the contestants that audition for Idol.

Have I sold millions of records as an artist or a producer? No. Do you know my name? Probably not. But what I do have that very few of the people participating in Idol do not have is that I was a major label singer/artist, songwriter, and am a music producer, among other ventures. And, probably the most considerable part of this whole experience is that I've spent many days on "the other side of the glass". What that means is that I have excelled in the recording studio vocal booth recording vocals for many years. I have experienced what it feels like to agonize in the studio singing. I know. I sucked when I did my first recording sessions. It's difficult. I also know what it is like to get really good in the studio as, the more I sang on songs in the studio and recorded, the better I got. Many artists are either a good live singer or a reasonable studio singer. Very few are both. I was one of the rare few that was good at both.

So, my experience is through the trenches learning. I know what it takes to write a song, record a song, sing the song in the studio, perform that song live, tour, promote, do phoner's, videos and interviews, etc. These are the reasons that I related so much to the contestants and why many of them could relate to me. With the exception of being on a TV show, almost everything they were experiencing or about to experience, I had experienced already.

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Singing Tips? Want to find out more Seasons Six Through Nine of American Idol is available for free reprint.