blueteamnovel Chapter 16: Twenty-Four Slots
Chapter 16: Twenty-Four Slots
Chapter 16: Twenty-Four Slots
"A theme we've come to refer to as The Blind Auditions!" Jack declared, a hint of amusement in his irises.
No sooner had those words left the judge's mouth, a mixed wave of relief, wariness and curiosity washed over all of the contestants in the room.
'The Blind Auditions huh...' Kyle mused to himself, more curious than wary of the new theme.@@@@
"So, what is this 'Blind Auditions' you ask?" Kiara picked it up from Jack and continued explaining.
"Well simply put, we judges' are put in a situation where the identity of each and every one of you contestants is concealed from us as you perform a song on stage, the audience excluded"
"The purpose of it, is to solely judge you based off of your singing capabilities without any form of bias..." she kept explaining
"But since that isn't really all there is to it, we'll give you a visual representation of what we actually mean" Blake then chipped in in conclusion.
Gesturing to a few of the production staff to play a prerecorded video that had been made onto the large TV screen in the room, the contestants watched on in curiosity.
The video then started with the real hall which they would be using in L.A for the competitions.
The massively large hall along with its completely empty chairs that could fit about a thousand people, suddenly lit up in bright lights as a production crew member walked onto the stage, seemingly imitating a nervous contestant.
Just opposite the stage, right where he was performing, were three big chairs, each ergonomically and modernly designed in a bulky manner, along with a pretty eye-catching big red button built into one of its arm rests each.
What was most curious though, was how all the chairs had their backs turned to the contestant on stage and how three other people, presumably other production crew members, sat on the chairs, imitating the impartial judges.
And then, a pretty terrible short song began to play in the background as the performer on stage lip-synced to it and performed.
However, even as he 'sang' the song, none of the judges did or said anything to him. They just sat on the chairs and didn't do a thing.
After the song was done though, the chairs then automatically turned around, surprising the contestants in the living room who were actually viewing the video.
And then, with a few painful lashings and brutal words from the judges that was enough to make the average grown man cry, the contestant was dismissed and left the stage in a dejected mood while sobbing.
With this, most contestants viewing the video sucked in a deep breath and immediately understood that said contestant had just been eliminated.
But then the video didn't stop there and instead, it continued on to reveal the next contestant coming on stage and performing a short song that was really good.
Instantly, one of the judges hit the big red button and their chairs turned around, lighting up a long narrow light between them and the stage the contestant was performing on that read; 'I Want You!'.
Having seen that, the contestants immediately understood that this contestant had probably been the one that would move on to the next round.
"However, starting Monday, filming will begin extensively so be prepared to give it your absolute all!" Howard concluded with a clap of his hands.
Nodding their heads in understanding, all of the contestants quickly dispersed and went about doing all they wanted to do.
Some had already decided to do as much sight-seeing as they could today while others had instantly began working on the songs they were going to perform.
Among the former, was Ryan, Katie, Steven and Joe, all of whom were pretty excited to explore a few popular sites and landmarks in the City of Angels like the Santa Monica Pier, Griffith Observatory, Hollywood Walk of Fame and many more.
Kyle of course, was among the latter.
Considering they were given the freedom to perform any song they wanted again, he was also planning on singing another original of his.
This original, was the one he had really worked on the most, both in his past life and this current one since he had become self-aware.
A song that he already had all the instrumentals prepared for and was more or less, a pop-rock ballad about the story of a lady suffering from a heartbreak.
Having taken a bit of inspiration from the way his mother had tried to move from one man to the other while trying to get over his dead father and being unable to do so in his past life, Kyle really felt like it was a song that would resonate with a lot of females in similar shoes.
In addition to that, he actually wanted the song to be quite uplifting too, as Kyle, unsurprisingly, was a big fan of happy endings.
Already having created and tweaked the instrumentals of the song to an almost perfect degree with his DAW from his laptop, it was the first song Kyle was going to perform without playing any instruments, which meant he was purely focused on pushing his voice to its absolute limits.
Although he noticed his voice was becoming more refined as he leveled up and he was able to push past some fairly high notes he previously couldn't, he hadn't really explored where exactly his singing strengths lay at.
This made him feel like he was practically a noob at the entire singing thing when most contestants had probably crossed that road a long time ago.
All that aside though, Kyle still very much believed he could make the actual song itself even better and with that thought in mind, the moment he got back into his room and took his bath, he sat down to begin working on it again.
Staring at the lyrics sheet, playing the pop-ballad tune on his laptop, pondering over a few things here and there, Kyle began making a few changes that he felt would further elevate the song.
'Yeah, I should add a bridge now that I think about it...'
'That means I'll need to tweak the instrumentals further to fit the longer length of the song...'
'The instrumentals... a short pause here maybe, build a slight anticipation for the final chorus after the bridge?'
'Hmmm... Using a falsetto would be nice at the ending post-choruses. Should I try it? I'll need to take those vocal lessons then...'
Just like that, the young man tirelessly kept working on his song till night came, getting up only at intervals to eat when hunger struck.