Ian Sidden

Subscribe

Weekly Gathering

By

I just found the blog Avocational Singer, and I like Frescamari’s articles very much. I recently read “Training Method for Singers”, which outlines the similarities of athletic training and singing. This is really speaking to me right now as I think about the year ahead. Also check out “How Much is Too Much?” which really reminded me of the discussion on my post “Strength vs. Technique” (it also introduced me to the New Forum for Classical Singers).

Also…

The Wolf Trap Opera blog is going to be running a series of the next few weeks that outline audition strategy. This looks very promising, and I encourage you to follow along. Here’s their outline for the series.

Weekly Gathering

By

The problem with positive thinking by Seth Godin offers some ideas why negative thinking is so prevalent, but he still asserts that positive thinking is the way to go.

Taking Liberties: Reviving the art of classical improvisation by Alex Ross of the New Yorker gives some history on improvisation in classical music, but it his discussion of cadenzas that is most interesting, especially for singers.

Music Teachers – Must Have Downloadable Freebies For the New School Year by Dr. Joseph Pisano of MusTech.Net gives an amazing list of free software options for music teachers and musicians in general.

Dealing with Rejection from Once More with Feeling is a timely piece since another season of auditions is upon us all. It offers something of a pep talk and a mental reframing to help us survive the pain that invariable comes from rejection.

Weekly Gathering

By

U.S. vs. Lenny from Alex Ross’ The Rest is Noise blog links to his articles in The New Yorker about the government’s interest in Leonard Bernstein.

Technology in the Audition Room from Once More With Feeling is a furious attack on those who use various technologies while auditioning people.

Fatty Foods Affect Memory and Exercise from the Well blog reports on a study done showing that high fat diets not only hurt cognitive ability but also lower the effectiveness of exercise. So the double cheeseburger before a show….should probably be let go.

Weekly Gathering

By

A Rehearsal Etiquette Guide from Once More With Feeling is a good and passionate guide for rehearsal manners.

Is a Career in Academia Still Worthwhile is a response to Billie Whittaker’s post Careers for Pianists, Part I: Expectations and Beginnings. Billie’s post has some good stats for pianists that singer’s may find not that useful, but the overall idea between the two posts is the same: other than fame and academia, what is there for college trained musicians? I love this ending thought from Billie’s post:

Further net-crawling for practical information revealed this article on music employment, Refocusing (Musical Entrepreneurship), written by a freelance bass player/professor. It calls attention to the ever-growing reality of many classical musicians: full-time work assembled from divergent part-time jobs. This is golden information: pianists who curl their lip concerning that brand of lifestyle need to find another major. Pianists who embrace the kaleidoscopic lifestyle need to investigate the skill sets more relevant to today’s employment landscape.

Do you think that this doesn’t apply to us singers? (By the way, you should read that article in her quote..hint hint….seriously…hint hint)

That’s it for this week. If you have any desire to become a pro, then by reading these posts, you will certainly help yourself.

Weekly Gathering: July 10-17

By

There were lots of good articles this past week! Perhaps there was some built up energy from the July 4 festivities.

Pianist and scholar Robert Levin speaks at Curtis Commencement on May 16, 2009. If you click on nothing here, you must listen to this if you are a classical musician. It takes about 15 minutes. It’s worth it. [It’s not from the time period specified in this post’s title, but it’s still great.]

Make Your Audition Pianist Happy by Billie Whittaker on her blog Good Company is an informative and funny article. It is specifically written for singers, so you should definitely check it out.

Sitting Quietly, Doing Something from the New York Times bog Happy Days is about the science of happiness. In particular, it is about a Buddhist monk who is demonstrably the happiest man in the world. Turns out that happiness is trainable. There’s also an embedded video that is very interesting.

I Don’t Know How they Do it by Jessica Duchen at Standpoint. This is an appreciative article about Joyce DiDonato who sang Rosina in Barber of Seville with a broken leg. It goes on to ask for pity for singers who cancel due to health concerns.

Coffee Breakdown: Is there a Link between Caffeine and Hallucinations? from Scientific American. As the name suggests, this article describes the effects that caffeine has on stress…and they aren’t good.

Music Review-‘Prima Donna’: The Diva has Issues from New York Times music critic Anthony Tommasini is a gentle mixed review for the first full opera by Rufus Wainwright. I love Rufus’ music and would love to hear his opera.

Youtube: Where Customers Get the Last Word from Small Business Trends discusses the recent case of professional musician Dave Carroll whose guitar was badly damaged on a United Flight. He countered with some hard hitting songs on YouTube, and now United is listening. [By the way, if you are a voice teacher or singer, then you are a small business. This is a great blog to follow.]

And yet…You Tube Pulls Audio from Greatest Music Video Ever from CNET is about the audio track being pulled from the parody version of “You Make my Dreams” by Hall and Oates. It featured the “keyboard cat”. Weird. Read the comments too (in the article, those on YouTube are totally R rated in protest). Turns out audio tracks have been yanked from personal videos because a copyrighted song happened to be playing in the background.

The Capacity for Honesty from Once More With Feeling is a good “musing” on the difference between artists and performers as well as honesty and artifice as related to repertoire decisions.

Finding Ways to Communicate: Fitting Your Audience’s Style by Rachel Velarde has a lot of good social media tips.

Learning to Sing: Deciding When to Start from Finding my Singing Voice offers some excellent advice for teachers of young singers and their parents.