Having a baby has changed our home lives quite considerably, particularly in the amount of TV that we seem to be watching recently. Watching movies isn’t easy, as Ben needs feeding, playing with etc. So we have tended to watch more TV, and on saturdays, X-Factor takes up much of the evening.
I’ve not really watched that much of X-Factor in the past. These talent shows leave me cold. The one thing that does interest me is how people with zero musical ability are so shocked to be rejected.
If a contestant turns to the camera and says “I have the X-Factor”, you know for sure that he or she can’t sing or dance, and probably looks like they fell out of the ugly tree. So how come they are so shocked?
I listen to music in the car all of the time, my trusty ipod is forever blasting out some choice toons, and I love to sing along at the top of my voice. Occasionally I think “hmm, that sounded alright”, but more often than not that thought is knocked dead in the next instant when I can’t reach the notes in the song or I am terribly out of tune, even in my own ear. Add to this my complete inability to dance in any other style than “dad”, and I am fairly sure of failure should I somehow audition for X-Factor…
I can’t sing. If I go to a wedding or something similar I generally just mouth the words, particularly if it is being videoed, as I don’t want to spoil the recording with my caterwauling. Now Shad Helmstatter would probably tell me that “you are what you say you are”, and that telling myself I can sing would improve both my voice and my motivation to sing better. To that I would say “that’s how you end up on X-Factor!!”.
Now I may be proved wrong but I would say that most of the people who can’t sing would NEVER in a million years of practice, be popstars, so no amount of positive thinking is going to make me a good dancer or most of the X-factor wannabes in to the next Robbie or Britney.
