Finding a day job that supports you financially with the flexibility you require for a singing career is tough. Add the basic need of quality of life (e.g. eating decent food, being able to stay out of debt, and havi reasonable health care options) and it seems almost impossible. But it's not. And you might even find a job that's fun and leaves you with enough energy in the evening to practice and enjoy your free time.

1. Calculate: Find out how much you will be paid, figure out what it will cost you to work there (gas, parking, oil changes, lunch, clothing, etc.) and see if you really can afford to have that job. (See What Your Teacher Never Told Youfor more on being an entrepreneur and making it work.)

2. Location, Location, Location: Keep the job as close to your home as possible. Time commuting/sitting in traffic is wasted time.

3. Specificity: Artists tend to have crazy schedules and any kind of routine can sometimes get lost--because we simply don't have it (sometimes). Try to land a decent job with specific hours and specific duties. Let the job keep you grounded in routine and it will help shape the rest of your week. If you know you have rehearsal every Tuesday and you teach every Thursday night, knowing that your Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule is 8-5 and done, you're more likely to be able to balance out stressful times and stay on top of your practicing and marketing.

Specific duties can also help--musicians tend to juggle more balls than most and a job with enough routine activities to keep you grounded and stable at work (but not too much to be deathly boring) can help focus you.

4. Trial & Error: If you start a job and discover it's draining or you have toxic colleagues or the commute is indeed too long or the hours are constantly changing or it just doesn't suit you or whatever--dump it. You are worthy a day job that supports you and brings you a few steps forward, but not one that drains you or brings toxicity or chaos into your life. (Been there, done that, didn't even get a t-shirt.)

5. Spin It: You've gotta do what you've gotta do, so have fun and treat it as your "cover." Whenever anybody at one of my other jobs hears my music and asks, "What are you doing here?" I respond, "This is my cover."  *wink*

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People really do say this to singers. It's SO ODD! It's like saying "You're an accountant? Do my taxes. NOW!" Or saying to a landscape architect, "Landscape my property. NOW!" Who likes to be put on the spot like that?

Who puts people on the spot like that, anyway?

Here are a few answers I've heard, ranging from downright sassy to politely diplomatic. Because I honestly don't know what the most appropriate response is, but maybe different demands can be answered with different responses.

The Sassy Response

One of the best responses to this was from my friend Susannah in Grad school at the Manhattan School of Music. She was working in an office and many people demanded she sings something right there--on the spot. She responded smiling with, "I charge by the note." They stopped demanding.

Another friend from college, Joe, responds with some variation of "I'm sorry, the monkey only dances if you put money in the cup." (Ouch!)

The Commercial Response

"If you would like to hear me sing, just put my name in at iTunes and you can download any of 3 songs I have there." Unfortunately, that didn't stop the pushy people from pleading, so I gave them a free download card. (What happened next is a WHOLE other blog article...) They finally left me alone because someone else distracted them. By playing the song previews on iTunes. Go figure.

Give 'em What They Want

Amazingly, a couple of my friends actually break into song, like "O sole mio" or whatever they have in their head at that moment. Amazing.

The Diplomatic Response

David, a friend of mine whose skill ranges from enchanting 60s folk medley to lovely early English song, will frequently respond with "I'm not warmed up and I don't want to damage my voice." Very fact-based, very diplomatic. Like Marta, who simply says, "Sorry, I'm off-duty." (That's my favorite so far.)

The Audience-Building Response

From fellow mezzo MajaLisa:  "I can't sing for you now, but you are welcome to come hear me at my upcoming performance of ________. If you want to give me your email address, I can add you to my newsletter." NICE, MajaLisa, very nice! We can learn from this woman!

A Parent's Response

Leave it to a parent-singer-conductor to give the most entertaing response:  "When people demand that I sing for them, I break into a lively rendition of "The Wheels on the Bus (Go 'Round and 'Round)" and insist they do the actions with me."

 

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FOUND!

A beautiful video compilation of two concerts from the Bel Canto Chorus South America tour last summer! The sold-out, standing-room-only concert in the Basilica de Guadalupe in Mercedes and the concert in the Facultad de Derecho in Buenos Aires.

Here you can see how utterly packed both venues were and how receptive the audiences were. What a gift it was to be there and to sing for everyone--and what a big, beautiful surprise to find this video.

Enjoy!

Click here to watch the video directly on YouTube.

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While on tour with the Bel Canto Chorus last summer, we stopped twice in Colonia, Uruguay, and most of us fell in love with it. Old cars had been made into art on the streets, small artisans showed us their art and their wares, and we were welcomed with open arms. They even danced us through the streets to the restaurant after our concert there!

Ana Belen Tourin was at the concert in the Teatro Bastion del Carmen and recently shared this video posted to YouTube - the report itself is in Spanish, with plenty of beautiful singing in the video!

Thank you, Colonia, you are magnificent!

 

Click here to watch the video on YouTube.

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Friday, April 6, 2012 at 10:00 am - on Minnesota Public Radio!

A radio broadcast from our sold-out performance on March 24th!

 

William Hite, Evangelist

Bradley Greenwald, Jesus

Carrie Henneman Shaw, soprano

Nicole Warner, alto

Roy Heilman, tenor

Aaron Larson, bass

Conducted by Paul Boehnke

Bach Society of Minnesota

 

 

Recorded LIVE March 24, 2012 in St. Mary's Chapel, St. Paul Seminary, St. Paul, MN

 

 

 

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Saturday, March 24, 2012 at 7:30 pm

 

William Hite, Evangelist

Bradley Greenwald, Jesus

Carrie Henneman Shaw, soprano

Nicole Warner, alto

Roy Heilman, tenor

Aaron Larson, bass

Conducted by Paul Boehnke

O

 

Bach Society of Minnesota

St. Mary's Chapel

St. Paul Seminary, St. Paul, MN

University of St. Thomas campus

2600 Summit Ave.St. Paul, MN 55105

 

 

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Where: Choir Room, Augsburg College

What: Junior Composers Institute (JCI)

With Whom: Randall Davidson, Dominick Argento

When: Monday, July 6, 2009

It was quite a treat to sit in on a session, led by Randall Davidson at the Junior Composers Institute with guest Dominick Argento, in the company of about 35 high school students and a few local professionals like Dan Dressen and Larry Weller. (A few participants in Nautilus Music-Theater's Wesley Balk Opera / Music-Theater Institute also stopped by.) The topic of "Selecting and Setting Texts" and quality discussion guidance by Davidson lead to some pretty interesting quotes and observations from Argento.

A sampling:

  • "Notes don't need a thing at all. It's not what the note is, but what it's doing."
  • Using 12-tone is like picking cherries off a tree for him.
  • "You have to treat a singer like a pet." Give them two or three bars to rest.
  • "What you want to find is your own voice."
  • The current level of music saturation in our society baffles him.

 

One JCI participant asked specifically about the level of musical saturation in our society--everyone has an iPod or an mp3 player or something constantly inserted into their ear that produces sound. Argento's answer was simply "It baffles me." He described having just come from his fitness class and how everyone had earphones in their ears and something strapped to their arms. Years ago, when he bought a 78 record of Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring," i
Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring

Igor Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring." Image via Wikipedia

t was 8 sides and understandably, switching records all the time interrupted the piece. (I, on the other hand, had to visit Wikipedia to find out how to write "78" intelligibly enough so anyone might understand that this is a vinyl record, since I grew up with 8 tracks and cassettes!)

 

So we really do have music at our fingertips 24 hours a day. Is this to our benefit? To whose deficit is it, if there is a downside to it? Argento: it cheapens music, there is too much of it, it's too easy. But more on that later.

When Argento begins a new piece, the first thing he does is to think about it for a long time. He said it's easy to begin a new piece too early, and that it is to one's benefit to think about it for a significant period time before one sits down to compose.

Argento's words and especially his demeanor portrayed a particular interest for Beethoven's sketch books; he likened Beethoven's compositional progress (within the sketch books) to battles of the Civil War, with bloody bodies everywhere. This stands in great contrast to Argento's own compositional work: he composes directly at the computer (on a keyboard) where a finished piece is practically ready to go to a rehearsal. A computer, a composer in front of it, and electronic media have instigated the demise of the composer's sketch book.

Sketch books aside, for a man who works in the aural realm, Argento paints vivid pictures with his words.

In reference to selecting texts, Argento advised the Junior Composers to know what they are writing and who they are writing it for. For it is not only the text that the audience understands, but the subtext which the audience shares with the performers. He also touched on the "set" rhythm of poetry and the freedom with which a composer can compose when it comes to prose. Don't just set the text, he urged, but put your understanding of the text into it. Most importantly, there are two things to keep in mind, said Argento: what you really want to do and how it is perceived.

Now ain't that the truth?

At one point Argento sat down at the piano and played the opening dah-dah-dah-dummmmmmmm of Beethoven's 5th--one ought to think of music in terms of those ideas, he said, not just a simple melody.

Let's go back to the "easy" music that saturates our society. If you really want to listen to, say Kelly Clarkson's "All I Ever Wanted," would you take the time to go to the store, spend your hard-earned cash on it, take it home, and play it over and over again, switching record sides (just for the sake of argument) every 30 seconds? Really, I'm thinking most people wouldn't. Would people do it for Stravinsky? Sure! Disney tunes? Most likely! Muzak? Probably not. So does that mean we lower our standards in order to have as much music as we currently have? It's a provoking thought.

What a delight it was to see so many young composers in the same room as a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer like Argento, ever-natural and ever-humorous. May these fine young musicians find not only their voices, but a way to feed us into a future with music to soothe our souls and lighten our days that neither lowers our standards nor makes us turn the records over and over again.

 

The original version of this article appeared in 2009 in the Twin Cities Collaborative, my column at www.notesontheroad.com.

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Are you ever disappointed to hear a band live in concert, only to realize they are really a “studio band” because they don’t sound very good live?

When was the last time you spent an entire afternoon listening to new music on the radio?

How many times have you heard someone speak about classical music and were totally turned off?

ENOUGH!

 There are too many singers who are making a career out of auto-tune. If you can't sing that well, either get voice lessons, find a coach, or play a different instrument. Auto-tune is a crutch and it lessens the quality of music when you use it. There are thousands of people who can sing well and don't need auto-tune.

I used to love listening to the radio. Not anymore. There used to be these things called playlists, and DJs would create them, put interesting lists together, and between songs they would give you background on the bands, where they are from, and their influences. Now this is unfortunately the exception and not the rule. (Thank goodness for public radio and 89.3 The Current!)

And snooty classical music people really get my goat. I'm glad I'm not one of them.

 

QUIT WITH THE AUTO-TUNE

A symbol used to indicate an artist's work is ...

Image via Wikipedia

Earlier this year, I estimated that approximately 40% of the 2011 Billboard Awards presenters used auto-tune. (The Billboard Awards had 7.5 million viewers.) Weeks later the Tony awards are presented—where NO ONE used auto-tune (The Tony awards had 6.9 million viewers).

Seriously, if you need auto-tune to sing in tune, you are NOT succeeding at music and you need to learn to match pitch. Find a voice teacher who can help you. Many of the performers on- and off-Broadway have invested huge amounts of money in their education and professional training and they don’t make nearly as much money as those who appear on the Billboard Awards. This is totally skewed and needs to be corrected.

Thankfully there are plenty of other people whocriticise auto-tune and its use.

And then there was Saturday Night Live this past weekend, were Florence (from Florence & The Machine) sang so out of tune it was a hot topic in my Facebook feed. First watch their YouTube video, obviously from the studio (with its own relatively minor pitch problems).

[embed=videolink]{"video":"http://youtu.be/WbN0nX61rIs","width":"800","height":"450"}[/embed]

Now watch the video from Saturday Night Live.

Really, that kind of pitch problem is unacceptable.

In my opinion, Florence doesn’t have enough breath support and doesn’t have a deep enough connection with her voice in her body. For her to continue singing without major vocal issues (if she doesn’t already have them), she needs to change her technique and breathe more, breathe more deeply, and create a better sense of deep connection in her own body. Florence & the Machine make such GREAT music, and she would serve her music, her audience, and most importantly her voice well by investing in her vocal technique.

 

WHO EVER SAID THAT SINGING OUT OF TUNE IS OK?!

 

However, what I really want to know is 1) When did singing out of tune become acceptable? 2) Who ever said that you can call yourself a singer if you actually really need auto-tune? 3) Why is it that so many singers with auto-tune make tons of money, and so many that don’t ever need auto-tune, even when they are ill, are not that well-known or worse, having a hard time making it?

 

AND ADELE...

 

The woman has a bleeding nodule on her vocal cords (which looks like this, WARNING, not for the faint of heart: http://www.evmsent.org/cysts_or_polyps.asp ) and not only does she need to 1) heal from the surgery, but she needs to 2) learn new technique so that it doesn’t happen again, which takes a lot of work and a lot of time. Don’t expect her to be back soon, and if she is, don’t expect her to be back for long. I truly hope, because she is a fantastic musician, that she takes the time to heal her voice and learn a healthier technique so she can continue to produce great music for decades to come.

 

I DON’T ♥ RADIO.

 

Let’s not forget the fact that Adele’s songs are sickeningly over-played, as fantastic as they are. I for one change the station because I’m so TIRED of hearing the same songs over and over again. Don’t get me wrong, I love her music, but I’m tired of it! Today I hit two pre-set stations in my car and both of them were playing Adele. A few weeks ago the same thing happened, and it was the same song.

One radio station I frequently listen to (which shall remain nameless) has been playing a certain set of songs since I was in high school. Since 1997. Really?! Like there haven't been thousands of new records released since then? When CDBaby can pay out $200,000,000 dollars to their independent musicians over 13 years, there are surely plenty of new songs to keep radio new and interesting.

So, Big Radio, where are they?

Radio stations would do us all a favor if they would play a) a greater spectrum of music, b) pay attention to more under-sung artists, c) require a higher degree of musicality from all musicians and producers.

 

CLASSICAL MUSIC

 

is still so amazingly relevant. Mozart’s Requiem on September 11th, beautiful orchestral music in movies, creepy orchestral music in horror films, open-air concerts, multi-media presentations, tours, Classical Revolution--and we need to keep running with it, creating new relevance, keep bringing it into the media, keep bringing it into our everyday lives, keep it in schools, get it back in other schools, bring it to those who need it most, those who need their souls filled by absolute beauty.

MUSIC

People have varying opinions on different types of music, but really, ALL music exists on a spectrum. Music has always evolved and is ever-changing and we need to see music in all its forms as equals. Yes, rap next to country next to art song next to folk next to orchestral next to pop next to oldies next to experimental next to everything else.

So here you go: fill your soul up with any of these below, 3 completely different pieces of music, all on the same spectrum called MUSIC:

 

[embed=videolink]{"video":"http://youtu.be/2F8aQB-HY6k","width":"800","height":"450"}[/embed]

  

 

 

[embed=videolink]{"video":"http://youtu.be/9_dtY0SM-NI","width":"800","height":"450"}[/embed]

 


[embed=videolink]{"video":"http://youtu.be/pggf6PO_D1Y","width":"800","height":"450"}[/embed]

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YES!

I can barely express HOW OFTEN I have heard this from adult voice students. People have come to lessons fearful and practically trembling because they so badly want to sing and someone once told them they couldn’t or they shouldn’t. For these students, it’s a particularly meaningful journey as we explore their voice and their musical creativity together.

As a music teacher, as a voice teacher, as an advocate for the arts, it’s baffling to me that so many people have this experience in their school music program. Thank goodness this isn’t true for a lot of the high school teachers I know today! HOWEVER, this has been a very common obstacle to a lot of people who love to sing. So what do you do?

1. SING. If you like to sing, then SING. Sing in the shower, sing in the car, sing when you’re home alone, sing out on a walk through the forest, sing with your kids, sing in your place of worship, join the choir, join a community choir, join a community theater troupe, sing with the music at the grocery store, sing as you craft, sing as you file papers.

2. Remember that your voice in high school was different than it was now. Everybody’s voice changes with time, our physical health, and our physical development (remember, our voices don’t fully develop until we are 30-45 years old).

3. Find a voice teacher you can get to know, you like well from the beginning, and you can come to trust. Use the voice teacher search at the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) site, search on the internet, ask your choir director for a recommendation, ask a musician friend, and set up first one month of lessons.

Over the course of 4 lessons, you should be able to get a good feeling for this voice instructor and how well you’ll work together over time. If you do like this first teacher, stay. Enjoy the beautiful music you will make together. If you aren’t sure or definitely don’t care for this teacher, go ahead and set up another month’s worth of lessons with a different teacher and re-evaluate after those 4 lessons.

4. The real work is up to you. No voice teacher can make you sing perfectly or make your voice anything in particular (in fact, the NATS code of ethicsprohibits voice teachers from making any such promises (Section II Nr 6))—the work is up to you. This is why it is so important to find a teacher you trust so you can break through the barriers created when that one person said XYZ so long ago. Find a great voice instructor FOR YOU, sing sing sing, and enjoy the journey!

 

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In 5 Tips for Taking a Gig (or Not!) I brought up this rule of thumb (from Ratgeber Freie) on taking or turning down a gig:

Does it make me happy? Does it make me rich? Or does it make me proud?

 

There are gigs that definitely won’t make you rich AND they are incredibly valuable. Because it’s inevitable that people will call you up during the year and say, “We don’t have a lot of money, but…” or even “We don’t have any money, would you sing this as a favor?” Sing for free? I think not!

 

But hold on for a sec.

 

There are a couple of situations in which it is appropriate to sing for very little money or even, yes, for free. And there is a limit, which I will get to.

  1. The Goose Bumps. A gig pays next-to-nothing, but you get goose bumps and the “oh-my-goodness” chills when you read the text and play through the score. This is NOT the “oh, wow, that’d be so cool…” reaction. This is the “Stop the train, where did THIS come from?!” reaction. This kind of situation happens maybe once a year…if even that often! So d o it. Do the work. Sing it. Pour your heart out. You won’t regret it.

2. Favors. You already know when it’s time to “sing a favor.” Your best friend’s wedding. Your Great-Uncle’s funeral. A short project for a musician friend. Know when it’s time to ask for a favor, and know when it’s time to return one. And know when it’s time to pay into the favor bank because you might need one in the future.

 

 

TIP: Keep the reigns tight on favors. And don’t ‘spread the word’ about them, either. Your reputation as a professional, paid performer depends on it. Maintaining a professional reputation is key to your success; once people know that you are a paid professional, they tend not to call you for freebies and cheapies. However, word does get around if you sing for cheap or for free; this devalues your work, our industry, and eventually, people don't think of you as a professional, but an amateur.

3. Donations. And here’s what I mean by donation:  A) you sing once a year at your church, for free, and are doing special programming; it’s one rehearsal and the church services. Or B) A non-profit organization asks you to sing a program at their event and you forego an honorarium (or donate it directly back to the non-profit). You need to clearly communicate that these are clearly donations and not favors.

To put it in monetary terms, think of a budget worksheet. In every budget worksheet you’ll see the section “Donations,” a percentage of your yearly income. If your yearly percentage works out to be $200 and you made two, $100 donations in March, you’re done for the year. That means, come Christmas, when everybody and their brother starts calling for a donation, and your budget hasn’t changed, you need to say no. One appropriate response is “I’ve already made my donations for the year.” This is the same and wholly appropriate for making Singing Donations. If you haven’t yet, it’s time to create a Singing Donation Budget.

 

Creating your Singing Donation Budget

 

Look at previous years’ schedules:

  1. How much singing did you do and how much did you get paid for it? Calculate what your average hourly pay was. (And since we singers operate as independent contractors, remember that this is *gross* income.)
  2. How many Singing Donations did you make?

Calculate roughly how much time previous years’ Singing Donations took. How much time did you need to schedule rehearsals? Mail music to the accompanist? Did you have to special order music ahead of time from a publisher far away? How many rehearsals were there? How many hours of rehearsals did you have?

 

Calculate how much you donated by taking the hours you spent on Singing Donations and multiply it by your average hourly pay (#1). That’s how much money you donated by way of Singing Donations last year. Now, is how many Singing Donations you made (#2) proportional to the total amount of gigs you had?

 

Take some time and let this sink in. Make a truthful decision about how many Singing Donations you will make in the next year that’s aligned with your yearly budget, your other financial (cash) donations, and your time budget. (I’ll talk time budget in another Open Intervals post.)

 

Here are two Singing Donation Budget examples:

  1. Singer Susan determines that she won’t sing any big projects for little money this year, but she will do a church service for free at her own church. And she’s going to call up a music director friend who needs a favor returned and sing a short recital at that church for free. Singer Susan’s yearly Singing Donation Budget is full.
  2. Singer Sally received a HUGE favor from true friend Composer Caroline when Caroline recommended Sally for a gig; the gig came through to the tune of Holy-Huge-Honorarium. Sally knows Caroline needs a singer for a demo recording and offers her services in return. In addition to the Special Music Sally will sing at her church for 3 Christmas Eve services, she’s filled her Singing Donation Budget for the year.

We are professional singers, we have studied long and hard to be able to do what we do, and we deserve to be paid for it. We also deserve the opportunity to give to our communities, the people who support what we do, and we deserve the right to put appropriate boundaries around it, as with any healthy budget. It’s the path of giving and receiving; selling a service (our singing) and giving donations (as cash or as singing), just as any other business would do.

**

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How much a singer needs to practice truly depends on the person, the project, and the purpose.

 

The Person: Some singers want and need to practice every day, as it's such a strong part of their daily routine, their day would be incomplete without it. There are plenty of musicians who even take their instruments on vacation with them, as they want to keep their muscles in excellent shape. Other singers practice several times a week, and yet other singers practice only when they have a project or an upcoming audition, meaning they take days or weeks off without practicing. A singer's practice routine is very individual and unique. It takes creativity, time, and experimentation to develop a quality routine.

The Project: A project that's in a foreign language that's unfamiliar to the singer, say an English- and French-speaking singer learning a Russian opera or song, will take significantly longer to practice. Not only does a singer need to practice the melody and incorporate all the technical aspects of the piece, all while researching and learning about the history of it, but she needs to practice the Russian--first speaking, then speaking in rhythm, and then singing slowly and then up to tempo. Add memorization to the mix and you've got a lot of practicing!

 

The Purpose: The purpose of the practice session is also dependent on the singer and the project. If she's practicing for her own enjoyment, then anything goes! If she's practicing for a specific project, say the Russian opera mentioned above, then she will most likely be more concentrated, more focused, and more goal-oriented than when she's 'maintaining' her audition repertoire. When the purpose of practicing is maintaining audition repertoire, say 5 opera arias, then she will be experimenting more with keeping the pieces active and creative--remembering her memorization markers and feeling the text come alive again as she sings through the melody. We call this "re-creating" a piece and re-creation is in itself a main skill of performing.

 

In minutes, a practice session usually begins with a 5-15 minute warm-up, a chunk of practice time, and a cool-down of 2-3 minutes. Many singers practice for a total of 30-45 minutes at a time, and some singers can practice for even longer without tiring--their voices or their bodies. Many voice teachers advise practicing three times a day in 30-minute chunks. Personally, I'm a fan of a 45-55 minute practice session with a break in the middle.

 

And done right, a singer is going to be a bit tired after practicing (just as after a lesson or coaching)!

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It truly depends on the piece and/or the program. A piece like Mahler's 2nd Symphony is larger and takes more time to 'sink in,' so even though that concert is in May, I've already begun working on it. When learning a new piece of music, whether it's as long as a symphony or as short as Barber's "Sure on this Shining Night," there are several, over-arching steps to piece preparation:

  1. Wood-Shedding. This is the initial get-to-know-you stage, where you play & sing through a piece, look up and write in translations, listen to a recording or two to get an idea of what the piece sounds like with a full orchestra, and research the text, composer, and history of the piece.
  2. In the Thick of It. In this stage, a soloist works with a coach/accompanist and/or voice teacher to really work the piece into her voice. This is often where the emotional development of a piece takes place, although hopefully there was an immediate emotional connection in the woodshedding process. This stage could be just an hour, or it could be months depending on the piece. (Sometimes getting a piece "into your voice" takes years!) Remember that we're developing muscle memory, which is vital for the actual memorization of a piece.
  3. Polish, Please! Here a soloist runs the piece from beginning to end OR starts at the end and works backward, e.g. in a 10-page piece, she sings the final 3 pages, then the last 6 pages, then the last 9 pages, then finally all 10 pages. Here the goal is to create a cohesive, over-arching feeling of the flow of the piece and to make some final technical and dramatic choices.

All of this work must be done for thorough and complete preparation, however when done well, it is not 'work,' but PLAY. Music is temporal--it takes place over time--music doesn't simply exist on its own. It can't be placed on your desk or hung on your wall, those are different art forms. Therefore, music must be created and re-created every time it is performed and to achieve this, you create it whenever you  play with a piece of music.

There are times when a concert or a program is requested, or you fill in for someone else who is ill or had to cancel at the last minute. Sometimes, you may have just a week or two to get a new concert piece into your voice. It’s a great challenge! Songs of Praise & Thanksgiving, for example, was created, learned, practiced, and performed in under 8 weeks--and it's 65 minutes' worth of music. That is a short amount of time to learn a complete song program and when such situations come about, you must rely on your sight-singing skills, your collaborative skills, and practicing becomes more intense and it must also, ironically, become more playful.

So you may have months to prepare for a program, you may have just a few days, and it comes down to being up to the challenge to truly play. No matter how much time you have, enjoy the ride!
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Let’s work backwards. Ringing is the term we use when a professional singer joins a choir, say a church choir, for a kind of limited engagement. It’s usually one week here, maybe another week down the line, and the main job of the singer is to ‘fill out’ the section. Sometimes solo work is included, but frequently not. A ‘ringer’ (the person who ‘rings’) is really hired to be a strong voice leading a section of the ensemble.

 

In the case of a church choir, a ringer is asked to attend one rehearsal, usually a Wednesday night, and then a short rehearsal just prior to the Sunday service(s). (This is usually paid as two events, the rehearsal being one event and the church service(s) being one entire event, e.g. $50 per event x 2 events = $100.) Since this process is short, you can well imagine that a ringer needs to sight-read and be willing to jump in and really go for it. That’s part of what makes ringing so much fun and it’s always a treat to meet a new choir and also for them to meet you.

 

While you as a professional singer work in a different part of the singing profession, we’re all really a part of the same, huge, musical family. It’s sometimes like meeting distant cousins you didn’t know you had--and had so much in common with!

 

While ringing is paid, it’s not the same as a paid, section-leader position in a choir. A section leader has a contract for the season (roughly September through May), a schedule to adhere to, and certain tasks to perform during the year. Tasks may include cataloging and organizing music or even performing a certain number of solos. Section leaders may hold sectionals, short rehearsals for just one voice in the choir, like the Alto Section Leader rehearsing with only altos. Section leaders frequently work in their positions for years, building up a repertoire of ensemble music, a long-lasting relationship with the director/conductor, and a rapport with their section members. Community choirs and church choirs are such fantastic communities; they can really grow into families!

 

Guest musicians are hired-in musicians, be they singers or instrumentalists, who perform special music for a church service or concert. A guest musician would attend a choir rehearsal if they are performing with the choir, but they are typically independent in their functioning. The church may request a certain program, and frequently they simply ask the guest musician to bring in music that fits the theme of the day or the sermon topic. Frequently guest musicians rehearse or do a sound check on Sunday morning and perform one or two services before departing. That's it!

 

This is actually how I got to perform four songs from Spring Reverberations; when a church hired me as a guest musician, the minister requested music to fit the theme “Resisting Reasonable Atrocities.” Poetry written by a prisoner of war certainly fits that theme, and it was a great way to bring beautiful Vietnamese music to a new audience. And this one event has led to at least 3 other performances of Spring Reverberations, one of them being the first performance of the song cycle in its entirety! It’s great fun to see where one event might lead!

 

Ringing, section leading, and working as a guest musician are wonderful and different ways of bringing your solo and ensemble skills to new communities, whether they be in churches or in community choirs. It’s a solid way to keep up your sight-singing skills and to build relationships in our huge, musical community. And it’s true that you never know where it might lead!

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Yesterday, 3 times in 24 hours came the question "Do you get nervous?"

Stagefright, a/k/a performance anxiety is very real for many musicians and can be debilitating. Rumors circulate about singers' superstitions before shows, some singers get snippy, others get quiet. Everybody has a different reaction before a show, whether it's business-as-usual or prayer & meditation and every singer's pre-show process must be respected.

There have been 3 stages to this in my life.

First was "Excited Nervousness." In school, in community theater, in college it was always excited nervousness--I was pumped to do the show or sing the concert and I was a little bit nervous. I always knew it was going to be OK and I always knew if I messed up, it was only that one time and later I would do better.

Second was "Can't Stop Shaking & Feel Really Sick" until my first aria or first entrance was done. I mean really shaky. It was not fun. And what I've come to realize was that a lot of it was due to the "marriage" I was in--because if I did anything my ex-"husband" deemed odd, or he was unfamiliar with as a non-musician, not only did I need to deal with processing the concert itself, but then I had to deal with him. This was all extremely unpleasant and was accompanied by his increased nervousness at every one of my performances while we were "married." In his eyes, I was supposed to take care of him before I went onstage...when I was supposed to be focusing on my singing, my collaborative pianist, and our work together. This doesn't just happen with abusive husbands, though, it happens with partners, siblings, parents. We could also call this stage mom syndrome. It can be debilitating. And it can last for years.

I venture to say the good majority of the stagefright and performance anxiety that people experience is other people's projections that we have taken on as our own. (This was very true in my case and the further away I am from that "marriage," the less stagefright I have.) If you think "I have to be nervous for this," then you most likely will be. However, if you think "I need to be the essence of calm and collected for this," then you will be.

Here's the key to counter stagefright:  the vast majority of audience members, conductors, auditioners and other performers actually want you to be successful! Think of the auditioner sitting in a theatre, no windows, for hours on end listening to auditionees who are trained in singing...only no one is really selling it. And suddenly a singer walks in, confident, smartly dressed, with a confident introduction, singing really well. THAT is the woman that the auditioner will hire!

So forget this "I'm nervous" spiel--you're there to be wildly successful and while it is about you, it's not about you--it's about what you can do. So go do it already!

OK, the third phase is this:  Get movin', I am at home on the stage and can we get this show on the road?!

The more you perform, whether it's concentratedly performing at home in your living room when you're prepping for an audition, in an audition, or whatever your creative musical outlet is, the easier it gets. You grow in experience every time you sing and over time you accumulate the emotional knowledge you need to just do what you need to do.

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