May I please suggest that if you love music, then be sure to go to the Rock Hall. There is music there for everyone. I am a Founding Member AND a walking advertisment! :o)

Anita

It’s kind of confusing; if you troll around, you’ll find different people saying she had no vocal training at all, that she studied opera in college, the she only had a little church choir experience. To my amateur ears it sure sounded like she had some good solid training, and I would think she would be proud of that. It’s surely nothing to be ashamed of!

Hmmm. I didn’t check out the profiles this year, but this reminds me of something that really bothered me last year–one of the weeks in the pre-performance interview, Lakisha said she had had no training, but in her profile she said “I have training in classical and opera.” (It’s still up on the American Idol site, too!)

Oh, boy–this is for me a consistent problem with them. I suppose they argue that it evens out because their various reporters favor different contestants, but it is very annoying and, IMO, very unprofessional, particularly when done by reporters for their magazine. It’s not so great when it’s by their bloggers, but I guess they can argue that those are the equivalent of Op-Ed pieces and are expected to be biased. (It bothers me even when I share one of their writers’ biases.)

I do think Jason needs more vocal training to deal with his breathing (which drives me crazy) and so that he won’t permanently damage his vocal chords.

But I like him because I see him connecting emotionally to his songs more than David A does. Yeah, David A has the perfect technique, but I don’t see real emotion in him yet. Perhaps a few more years will help with that.

Jason’s style didn’t work for me for Broadway week - there are genres in which I really require a technical singer. But for my regular listening music, I’d rather hear someone connect emotionally with the lyrics than get their technique totally right. But everyone has their own preferences when it comes to music.