My passion project

I mentioned in my last blog post that I was worried about the barriers to entry created by the need to submit video demos for so many applications these days. It feels like you can’t even get an audition if you don’t have a set of recordings, and they’re not cheap to make. They’re cheap for companies to watch, much cheaper than hiring an audition venue and pianist! Yet another wonderful aspect of our industry shifting financial strain onto its least financially secure members… but I digress.

I’ve been thinking about what I could do to help address this financial burden. I can’t record everyone, nor can I afford to do it for free. What I can do, though, is teach people to record themselves! In lockdown, I hosted a Zoom call for colleagues where I went through the basics, and then fielded questions. It went down quite well and I later did the same for a few individual keen singers. Through preparing for these tutorials, I started work on what would become the core of a video course, imaginatively called ‘Recording Basics for classical singers’. I had a Keynote (Mac-speak for PowerPoint) presentation, some ideas for practical examples that could help illustrate key points, all I needed to do was get those recorded and produce the actual videos.

I wanted to do it properly, though. That meant having a couple of venue examples, and a variety of voice types. So I hired some singers, pianists, venues, drew up a list of what I needed, hauled my microphone collection to the sessions, and recorded a whole lot of audio snippets, as well as some full arias and songs to use as case studies.

Then came the hard part - writing a script, recording voice-overs, and putting it all together in as clear a way as I could manage. It honestly fried my brain, and I burned out at one point, shelving the whole thing while I dealt with other stuff (annoyingly, life refused to be put on pause while I sank time into my pet project). I knew I had to finish it, though. I’d invested too much time, money, and passion. Yes, passion, because this is something I wish had been taught in the various institutions I attended, and I feel very strongly that the skills I hope to teach singers will transform not only their recordings, but their attitudes and approach to the whole process of recording.

Big words, I know. But, gushy language aside, I think there’s a gap in the market, and I intend to address that gap. The course is ready, the price-point is set at what I last paid for a singing lesson (so considering this is probably at least a term’s worth of teaching, it’s pretty affordable, I’d say), and I hope it helps my fellow singers out there! Helps them record themselves, helps them communicate better with people they hire to record them, and helps them realise what’s possible in the realm of recordings.

Course will be available to buy this coming week, sorry for the #ad… Here’s a trailer!