The Musicologist’s Companion to American Idol
A conductor friend of mine recently busted out the following conversation starter over lunch: In a hundred years, American Idol may be the most significant locus of study in the field of performance practice. Predictably, this gem set off a lively debate; naturally, the fact that I’ve never seen American Idol didn’t stop me from pontificating at length on the prospects of performance practice as an area of inquiry and the prominence of said television show therein.
That American Idol is a telling temperature reading of our era is an easy conclusion to reach. Such a participatory, widely broadcast bread-and-circuses performance situation—not to mention the cannibalistic interpretations of extant literature from the bargain bins of our shared repertoire memory—must be emblematic of the distribution and diffusion of musical practice and expertise characteristic of the present day. However, in order for us to discuss the entirety of American Idol under the rubric of “performance practice,” we’d have to expand the definition of that term pretty substantially. For instance, the question of continuous vibrato occupies a lot of mental real estate among certain performance practice scholars. Indeed, American Idol could be included in a conversation about continuous vibrato: How many times do we hear a long note sustained for a while without vibrato, then shaken a bit toward the end as the air begins to get dearer and dearer? But this quality of performance practice isn’t particularly unique to American Idol; you’re likely to encounter this vocal phenomenon in every cruise ship revue, Branson matinee, and high school musical (and, I imagine, every High School Musical).
Meanwhile, the things about American Idol that make it truly unique, truly 21st century, don’t seem to have symmetries in the area of performance practice per se. Measuring a performance’s success by the number of phoned-in votes it receives? Scouring the singer with castigation from a triumvirate of peripherally musical businesspeople? Including in the performance, broadly defined, a series of vignettes designed to admonish and humiliate those would-be contestants whose ambition exceeds their talent? These facets of the show are related only by the barest tangent to the singer’s relationship with the music, the province of performance practice proper. The study of performance and reception history might be a better fit.
At any rate, although I don’t know that I agree with my friend’s assertion—and, to be frank, I certainly hope it’s not the case—it’s an interesting thought to chew on. If I had a musicologist’s companion to American Idol at hand when the show aired, I might actually watch it.