VOPERA, awards, and thoughts on impostor syndrome

The dust has settled on last night, and I’m so proud to have been part of this project, this team, this completely bonkers grass-roots film. VOPERA won an RPS Award!

Working on L’Enfant was a huge part of my pandemic experience. I could write a tonne about the process, the people, and it still wouldn’t scratch the surface. I will, however, fling some thoughts out into this social media void, because I want to get them off my chest.

This single project marked the death of my impostor syndrome. I’d carried it with me for years, since getting into music college having had no formal musical education. I always felt like a bit of a fraud, surrounded by people who were better musicians than me. I then, half by accident, drifted into the world of recording and filming my peers, colleagues, and friends. I charged money for it (mostly to buy better gear), and then strangers started emailing, because they’d seen my work, or had been told about it. 

That’s when impostor syndrome reared its head again, just as I was starting to think of myself as a legitimate singer / decent musician. Suddenly I had a side hustle (now a proper small business) in a field I had even less formal training in. I was learning as I went, from my own mistakes, from online resources, from books; panicking before every session that wasn’t voice and piano. But I took on nearly every project I was asked to record or film, mostly to learn and grow, but also to supplement my income as my singing career stalled. I was asked to do things because back then there weren’t that many small outfits doing this kind of work, and as an ‘impostor’, I pitched myself as a cheap option. 

Before I knew it, I had stopped auditioning as a singer. I was still singing, still getting work off the back of old auditions, the grapevine, drop-outs, etc; but I decided that I wanted a break from auditions, because they were mentally crippling for me. And I had my recording business, where people (a lot of them) wanted to work with me. I was one of the go-to guys for opera demos, and there was a variety of other recording/filming work that kept things interesting too. 

I still felt like a bit of a fraud, though.

And then 2020 happened. I tried to get various things off the ground in lockdown, but I’m no trend-setter, or leader, or inspirational figure. But I participated in any projects that I could - Bite-Sized Proms (congrats to Jennifer Johnston for her RPS Award!), editing virtual choirs, various things for Bradley Travis at ETO, and two filmed operas (I’d never done an actual film before) - Orfeo for IN Series, and Bhekizizwe for Opera’r Ddraig, both incredible experiences in their own way, both hugely challenging as well.

Near the beginning of that weird time, Jamie Hall brought me in on the ground floor of an idea. He said something to the effect of ‘you should meet Rachael Hewer, she has ideas and she makes them happen’. And so a Zoom call was arranged. 

I don’t think I’d realised how big this thing was going to be until I had to block out about a week to host online tutorials for all the singers on how to record and film themselves at home. There were so many faces! Then I was assisting Myles Eastwood recording the LPO, and watching him work was a privilege, and an inspiration. And he treated me, a singer, like a peer. I loved those 2 days.

And then the files started coming in, and it was time to mix the thing, and it was my job to turn a beautiful recording of the LPO and over a hundred recordings made on phones, Zoom recorders, and the like, into a proper soundtrack. 

It was not easy. It went wrong a few times, and I had to go back to the drawing board. It was all-consuming for a time. I had help, though! Lee Reynolds, our conductor/MD, his vision and his notes kept the bar for me high, sometimes frustratingly so, but he was right to push me, right to not let things be ‘fine’. He also brought in Owen Stavenuiter, without whose help editing the chorus tracks we would never have made the deadline. There was a point where we hit a bit of a brick wall, and Myles came back to have a look at the mix and offered some tips to get us over the line. In the end, we did it. I did it.

I can’t stress enough how much I learnt from the process of VOPERA. The most important lesson was that my voice is valid, as are my skills. While some of the pitfalls of the mixing process were to do with the sheer technical difficulty of the material we were working with, some were to do with me not backing my own vision, or not being able to persuade others to why I believed a certain approach was the right one. Learning to better articulate my opinion and my process, and perhaps not to send incremental drafts before they’re fully formed, but also to stand my ground on occasion… these lessons I get to keep.

I also get to keep a sequence of every draft version, to remind me of the journey, and where we doubled back after going down a rabbit hole… at least I hope I get to keep them, as my computer died the other day, and I haven’t been brave enough to check if tangential-work-product-memorabilia was in a properly backed up folder, or not. 

Finally, I get to shed my impostor syndrome. L’Enfant sounds good. My productions since then sound better than ever. My confidence in dealing with various recording scenarios is in a place where planning days are a calm affair, rather than a ‘what if they realise I don’t know what I’m doing?’ nightmare. 

I know what I’m doing. I know I do a lot of things slightly unconventionally, too. But people hire me for how my stuff sounds, so there’s obviously something I bring to the table outside of the ‘conventional’. 

It’s thanks to VOPERA, and I know I’m not the only one whose skills, old or new, got immeasurable validation thanks to L’Enfant. A lot of amazing art got made, against the odds, in 2020, and if each of those projects had a similar impact on its participants, I believe that a great many lives were changed for the better thanks to that art. It won’t bring back lives, it might not bring back livelihoods (but, then again, it might), but it does give me hope. 

RPS Award in the hands of some of VOPERA's keyboard warriors: myself (sound), Jamie Hall (cinematography and VFX), 

and Sasha Balmazi-Owen (additional VFX)

Thank you to everyone at VOPERA, and everyone I got to create stuff with over the past way-too-many-months, and to everyone who watched it all. And, if you made it this far, thank you for reading. 

The NYIOPs (and why you should always check what’s actually included in the price)

If you haven’t done any yet, let me be the first to warn you - auditions abroad are expensive. Cheap flights are all well and good, but auditions tend to come up at short notice, so you’re unlikely to get the best rates, plus the flight cost is the least of your problems. There’s getting to/from the airports for a start, and once you’ve auditioned straight off a red-eye Ryanair flight, you may well agree with me and say ‘never again’. For the sake of not having to perform on little sleep and having travelled for many hours, you’ll decide to arrive the night before whenever possible, adding a hotel stay to your bill. For a continental audition, travelling from the UK, you’re probably looking at £200 a pop, or so.

Mind you, it could be worse. You could be American ;) The prospect of an ‘audition tour’ of Europe has been a standard practice of US singers wanting to try their luck in a different job market. This is where one man had a business idea and started the NYIOP auditions. Das konzept was simple - reverse the regular practice of singers travelling to casting agents. Get the agents to come to where the singers are based in order to hear them. Initially the project started in New York, hence the name, but after some teething problems and with a rather divisive reputation, over the years it has expanded and holds auditions all over the world. I recently attended one such session, hence me writing about it. I’ll try to stick to the facts, but inevitably some impressions may creep in... I’m only human, after all.

In theory it all looks reasonable. The cost of the London session I attended was around £230 (you have to pay in US $) and NYIOP posted a list of 9 opera houses who were sending their representatives, most of them from continental Europe, one from the US, none of the local UK houses. £230 is a lot cheaper than 9x£200, so it sounds like a bargain... well, it sounds reasonable. It’s still a lot of money for a 10min slot, and over 3 days there would be a lot of singers paying more than enough to put up those 9 representatives, plus the NYIOP staff. But I guess there’s venue hire, a pianist, etc, and it is a business after all. Fine, let’s call it reasonable for the opportunity it offers. There are also a few artist management agencies coming, which is great, if you’re into that sort of thing ;)

Did I say pianist? Sorry, no. A week before the audition we get a very comprehensive email describing the procedure, what we need to bring, etc. This includes an instruction to bring £25 in cash for the pianist, even if you don’t plan on using the player provided. Hmmm... 10 minute slots (that’s £150/h for 3 full days of work)... no rehearsal time... ok... it’s not like we have a choice now, is it? I’ve saved that email in lieu of a receipt/invoice, as none was given, by the way.

The day itself ran very smoothly, the steward was very courteous and calming, the pianist played very well, there was a warm-up room, and the rather large panel all seemed to be there. Well, the numbers seemed to add up. Great, singing done, go home, wait for an email with the contact list of the casting representatives who came.

Ok, it’s not a contact list. It’s a list of names (about half of them with spelling mistakes) but no email addresses, just the name of the company they were representing. ‘Representing’ is a very flexible word, isn’t it? Suspicions arise when you see the 6 German houses are represented by 3 people, 2 each. These people aren’t all that easy/possible to find on the websites of said houses, either. A friend telling me that their German agent doesn’t rate any of them as people with the power to employ anyone conjures up the word ‘consultant’ in my mind. Well, if they can’t get you a job (I’ll come back to this working theory in a moment, because there is some evidence to the contrary), maybe they can get you an audition... but surely that’s achievable without this whole palaver? In any case, when I see 6 opera houses on a list, naive wide-eyed youth that I am, for some reason I imagine 6 people turning up, potentially with their assistants. No? Fine, that was never guaranteed in the small print (actually, nothing was guaranteed). 

What about the other 3 houses? Well, one disappeared from the list. The list being accurate was never guaranteed either. One was there and was definitely the head casting honcho (full marks!). One came and left after lunch on the first day... of three... and that was the American one. Despite the NYIOP website FAQ specifically stating that representatives are expected to stay for the entire 3-day session, as part of their deal with the organiser (who pays for their flights, accommodation, etc). It’s in the FAQ, it’s not in the small print of the ‘contract’ you get when you pay your fee. 

So that’s 4 casting people (including consultants), or 5 if you sang on the first half-day, no email addresses, plus the agents who came (not all the ones advertised turned up though), again with no emails. Go go gadget search engine! I’ve stalked enough people online to only waste an hour or so to get email addresses for everyone. They aren’t that well hidden, so why not save us poor singers (or our agents) some grief? Or at least spell the people’s names correctly, rather than make poor Google’s life harder than necessary... 

Can you tell I wasn’t all that impressed? It’s not that I disapprove of the concept, quite the contrary - it’s sound! It’s a great idea and I’m happy for someone to make money out of facilitating these kinds of auditions. It can’t be easy convincing opera companies to send their representatives, ensure they stay for the whole thing, and to coordinate it all. All power to David Blackburn for putting these things on at all! And there are testimonials from people who have gotten jobs out of these things, including proper fest contracts. I’m not sure if that involved follow-up auditions or not, as I haven’t met these people... but we do have mutual friends ;) and I’m looking forward to anyone with experiences of success stemming from NYIOPs sharing their stories in the comments section. For my part, though it’s early days, there has been some feedback about my audition, which is always a gift.

But getting the names of the panel members wrong in the ‘contact sheet’ seems a bit sloppy. Not including the pianist’s remuneration in the original fee seems a bit cheeky. 3 gentlemen representing 6 opera houses between them seems like it could have been made clear earlier (I would have liked the chance to find out if that’s just how it’s done in Germany... hint - it is, but not quite). Panel members leaving or just not turning up seems like it shouldn’t be a thing.

All in all, I applaud the idea, but sigh in exasperation at the execution. As a paying customer, I expected more. Not a job, that’s down to my singing! But I didn’t feel like I got what I thought I was paying for. I personally think the organisers need to either tone down the blurb, or deliver on it better.

I reserve the right to edit this post as and when I hear back from people whose experience of the NYIOPs is different.

Rule One

There has recently been some uproar in our small community over an employee of a leading British conservatoire sending out a very poorly written set of guidelines for getting on in the musical profession. It was a hodge-podge of conflicting advice that included several offensive terms, but also made no attempt to explain the grim reality of the profession it portrayed (and let’s not kid ourselves: most of the broad stereotyping, casual sexism, toxic competitiveness, etc, that the memo described, cemented, and almost encouraged; is sadly true). As a conversation-starter at a symposium, it would have worked brilliantly and kicked off a debate on how we could strive to make our world better. But as a memo circulated by email with no context, only pearls of wisdom in the vein of ‘what happens on tour stays on tour’, it just sends the message: this is the world you’re entering, conform or fail!

It’s sad. We can do so much better, and it should start at conservatoire. Music should be a collaborative quest for the betterment of mankind through beauty… not a cess-pit of one-upmanship and insincere high-school posturing. 

I’ve always felt conservatoires didn’t adequately prepare students for some of the harsher realities of the profession, but obviously this isn’t the way to do it. Even some of the more light-hearted elements of the memo, which focussed on the social aspect of music-making, only serve to take the fun out of it! Telling students to be the life and soul of the party (but avoid getting a bad reputation, obviously) is a recipe for a generation of young people who will fail by trying too hard to be ‘fun’. Rather than just allow themselves to be infected by the fun of their slightly older colleagues through listening to anecdotes, advice, etc. 

So here’s my advice to students (or anyone else for that matter), and hopefully it’ll be a lot shorter than that memo (though my preamble has already made that unlikely). You’re about to enter a world of pain! Studies have shown you’re 3x more likely than a ‘normal person’ to suffer from depression as a musician. You will face rejection, sexism, racism, section-ism, instrument-ism, etc. You will also meet wonderful people along the way, have great banter, make memorable music, so it’s not all bad. Focus on the good stuff, be patient, be kind to yourself, learn as you go. And in all your interactions with others - there’s only one rule you need follow. My friends and I call it Rule One (I have unashamedly stolen it from a good mate of mine).

Rule One = Don’t be a dick!

Always judge yourself by Rule One. Is coming to a rehearsal underprepared ‘being a dick’ to my colleagues? Yes! Don’t do it. Is talking about so-and-so behind their back ‘being a dick’? Probably! Try not to. Is warming up in a shared dressing room when your mate has a migraine ‘being a dick’? Yeah, try to find a better place! Infecting everyone with a plague just to avoid missing out on a show fee? I refer you to Rule One. Is flirting with a colleague when you’re married ‘being a dick’? Sometimes, most often, and definitely if that colleague is your ‘underling’, and going beyond flirting earns you a capital D. Is calling someone out for ‘being a dick’ constitute a breach of Rule One? Unfortunately the answer is quite often ‘probably’ ;)

It is a simple rule at heart though, and may well be all you need to be a valued member of our community. I’m willing to bet it’ll serve you better in the long run than any elaborate ‘networking tactics’, in your well-being as much as in your career.

The show that almost didn't happen

This blog post is for myself, as much as it is for anyone out there who reads it. I'm writing these thoughts down so that I can always come back to them and remember what happened last week. I've been gushy about performances and projects before, sometimes even humbled, but I truly think my experiences in Dartmoor prison may have been the most formative I've had to date. That's why I'll try as hard as I can to refrain from gushing and just put down as honest and bare a personal account as I can.

To put the whole thing in context for you, the premise (as relayed to me by the organiser - Adam Green) was simple - we put on a reduced version of Carmen in Dartmoor Prison, with a chorus made up of inmates. I had done quite a lot of outreach work before with ETO and Garsington Opera, and it had always been very rewarding, so of course I agreed to take part, looking forward to the warm feeling you get from 'giving back'.

It's been a couple of days, and to be perfectly honest, I don't have that warm feeling. The project was indescribably amazing and worthwhile, and the high I was on directly after the performance was probably the biggest I've ever had. I also feel and believe we managed to make a positive impact on the people we worked with, prisoners and guards alike, and they on us. I will always remember the zeal and abandon that our chorus performed with, the energy they gave me during the Toreador was electrifying, and goes to show how powerful the art of performing music can be (but also made me feel that in every performance I've ever given, I could have given more, held less back, been more invested in the joy of what I do). Through their sheer focus and enthusiasm, the chorus truly became the stars of the show, and their smiles in the curtain call as they bowed will stay with me forever. Plus the sound they made! Every time someone asked 'yeah, but can they actually sing?', I smiled the same smile Adam did when I asked him the same question, and replied 'just you wait until you hear them'. Visceral, full-bodied and joyous, I can only describe it as the sound of freedom... The freedom to express yourself in the most extrovert way imaginable; the vocalised joy of working together in a group; the sound of people forgetting who and where they are...

And here we come to why I'm not filled with a warm glow, despite being genuinely in awe of the experience we all shared. We all worked together on this piece. The prisoners worked on their back stories from day to day, and handed Tom (our director) pages of 'question and answer' homework every morning. During rehearsals there wasn't really any feeling of there being 'us' and 'them'. We joked, laughed, explored, played, sang, drank tea, everything as a group of artists. In tea breaks the music making would continue, someone grabbing a guitar and a small group launching into pop songs, or our pianist and an inmate playing showtunes on the piano together. And then the call would end, and we'd go home, while they'd be marched back to their cells, just at the point when normally a company would go for a quick one down the pub. The magic would always end so abruptly. Once, when we got stopped mid-rehearsal because there was an ongoing incident elsewhere in the prison and everyone had to be taken back to their cells for roll call, I actually cried. When we arrived on the day of the show only to be turned away with the words 'there's an ongoing incident, we can't let you in and we don't know if the show will happen' I couldn't believe we may not actually see the guys again... Thankfully, due to the determination of the prison staff to go make Carmen happen, it did go ahead.

I don't even remember what I was expecting before the first day of rehearsals with the inmates. I was nervous, perhaps slightly frightened... But after hearing them sing, chatting with them, I quickly realised - they are just people. We all have in us the capacity for all things human - good or evil, regret or obstinance, indifference or empathy. Of course, I realise there are reasons for them being where they are, and that prisons aren't supposed to be nice places. But I did find myself thinking as we went on a guided tour of the facility - nobody deserves this, there must be a better way... 

To be fair to HMP Dartmoor, talking to the governors and guards, you get a feeling that they do want to do what they can to help the prisoners. There are courses in tiling, woodwork, bricklaying, and other qualifications the inmates can study for in order to have a chance of getting work after release. The atmosphere is respectful, even friendly. Everyone there is doing what they can to address the myriad of issues that crop up in a place like that - mental health issues, self-harm (the prison has pet ferrets that apparently help self-harming inmates), contraband, violence, a horrible drug called 'spice' that is so strong it can even affect guards who accidentally inhale it, the dietary requirements of each individual inmate (for the £1.30 the prison has to spend daily per prisoner on food), the need to exercise, and even the needs of pre-op transgender prisoners (one of whom was in our chorus). There is a lot of good will in that place. But the building is ancient and damp, the cells tiny, the number of staff inadequate (on weekends, when the prison operates on a reduced staffing, there aren't enough guards to let more than a small number of prisoners out of their cells, so most will be locked in their tiny room from Friday evening to Monday morning).

So while I feel immense pride in what our chorus accomplished, and gratitude for the chance to be involved in such a great project, I can't help thinking about how they must be dealing with the post-show come down (which all of us get) in that place. I simply have to have faith that they can hang on to the memory of that onstage feeling and go back to the world we created in the prison chapel, and that they can keep that feeling of freedom they had. I miss them... 

One of our more shy chorus members came up to me before the show and handed me a folded piece of paper. 'This is a letter for all of you professionals, can you share it with them? Just please don't read it until after you've left, I'm too embarrassed...' I won't quote much from it, suffice it to say I cried reading it. He signed off with this:

'Thank you for treating us all like equals.'

Damn right. We all are.

http://www.prisonchoirproject.co.uk

A (rare) day in the life of a cover

Covering has to be one of the most difficult things we can be asked to do. It's an important part of any young singer's initiation though, because what it boils down to is condensed craft and nerves of steel.

On the surface, when accepting a cover as part of a contract, you think it's all going to be great. You'll learn it, rehearse it, do a cover run, and then probably not go on. Easy. I've covered before, and gone on too, and I've even written about it, and it's not that simple even if you do get the luxury of rehearsals and a cover run on set. You'll have to deal with not having done it for 2 months for instance.

This was very much not the case yesterday, though. Yesterday, I went on in a show, having had no rehearsals on my cover (I'm singing chorus in said show, and a role in the other main stage production, as well as doing an education opera - the schedule can only accommodate so much), and to make matters scarier still, I was (and still am) ill. Not as ill as the principal, but still ill. When you think of covering, you think 'if they're ill, I'll go on'. You sort of assume you'll obviously be in the form of your life and it'll be wonderful. But actually, if you're in the show anyway, a company bug may grip you both, and it's just a question of who is at what stage of the illness. As a matter of fact, on this occasion, 3 days earlier my own cover was on standby. Never assume anything.

So I got the call after breakfast and immediately life was put on hold. So much for my plan to catch up on admin or rest after opening night of Patience. Nope, laptop away, Tosca score out (or, in this case, onscreen), headphones in. OK, so this is happening. It very quickly turns out that my bedroom isn't the ideal place to get into the right frame of mind, so I leave to set up camp in the theatre. On the tube people turn their heads, as I've got all my scenes looped on a playlist and am inevitably humming along. It's not often you'll hear someone murmuring the baritone interjections in 'Recondita armonia' on the Victoria line (with added coughs). I'm in the theatre by 2pm, go over costume with wardrobe, chat through the blocking with the assistant director, move my portable pharmacy to the principals' dressing room, go shopping, warm up, make nasal rinse, make ginger tea, all the while humming and counting my way through the music. At 3.30pm I get a coaching with the assistant conductor, sing through it, chat about the tempi, the spots where I need to catch the maestro's beat, then I do the tricky chorus scene one more time, and we agree there's nothing more to be done here. It's almost 4pm, so I go to sit in the stalls and watch the set get screwed into place, waiting for what will be my Stage & (no)Piano. I get 20 minutes or so to walk the scenes I've only ever watched a few times, which is fine, we'd talked through it an hour ago and I'd been imagining it, so I'm more or less on top of the geography. People start coming in for the balance call (or as far as I'm concerned - dress rehearsal), I chat to the maestro, who says we'll do what we can in the short time we have with the orchestra, but we may not do all of it because he has to give our leading lady some time - it's her first show (the role is double-cast and this is show number 2). Everyone wishes me well and it suddenly seems like my going on for a small role is a big deal. Yikes. Balance call is at 5.20pm and we do a good 2/3 of my stuff, with mistakes aplenty because I've never done it with a conductor before. Right, grab assistant conductor afterwards and dissect said mistakes and get him to show me what I can expect to see from the podium in those bits. Eat soup. Decide against eating soup halfway through. Walk my blocking in the dressing room again. Mime conducting myself through the mistakes from the balance call. 7pm get into costume. 7.25pm go down into the wings. 7.30pm Angelotti is on and this is really happening. 7.45pm or so, first scene is done and I can go up and worry about the tricky bit. 8pm go down and do the tricky bit and the interrogation scene. Suddenly, I'm in the wings and it's over... Or at least it would be, if I didn't now have to go change into my chorus costumes and do all the stuff I normally do ;)

It wasn't perfect. You can't get that in half a day, there's a reason rehearsals take weeks. But I didn't make any of the glaring mistakes from the balance call, nor did I stop, or hesitate after an unsteady entry. The cold, while annoying, wasn't debilitating. I came off feeling like I'd done what was required, and that's a hell of a good feeling. It was the first time I've been nervous in the wings for years, but also the first time in a long time I've been that excited while performing.

Now, time for some quick words advice for covers that came to me as I was lying in bed afterwards:

1. Be able to sing/hum ALL of it. Including other people's lines. This normally comes naturally over the course of rehearsals, but if you don't get to rehearse bit by bit, over and over again, then you need to get there yourself. Knowing it all gives you anchor points in case something goes wrong, it is often more natural than counting if entrances are tricky, and it also means you know the scene and therefore can be present. If you can't sing the whole thing on your own (your part, the orchestra and other singers in between), then you'll be a lot more worried out there.

2. Learn to conduct it, or watch the conductor if you can. Rehearsing with piano is one thing, but the orchestra sounds nothing like it. Standing on stage it also sounds nothing like the recordings. If you can spend some time watching a monitor with the conductor in stage & orchestras or shows, rather than watching the stage, you'll be glad you did. Fewer things will catch you by surprise.

3. Watch from the wings (or from behind in a rehearsal room), not from the stalls. It's good to see it from the stage's perspective at least once or twice.

4. Once you're on, that's it, there's only one way it can go, so stop thinking. Mistakes are ok, just move on. And know that everyone around you up there, and in the pit and wings, will help you in any way they can.

5. Don't imagine you'll always be on top form when you go on ;) 'That's not how the Force works', so be mentally prepared for it, otherwise a cold can add an extra bit of stress that you definitely won't need.


PS I'm sure a lot of my ETO colleagues, who did all they could to support me last night, will be reading this, and to all of you - Thank You!

PPS Covering is easy if the leading man gives you a good luck card with all your blocking drawn on it ;)

Have you brought any Mozart?

This post will no doubt be preaching to the choir, but having sat on a panel late last year and had discussions with my agent regarding my own audition repertoire, I thought it would be good to muse on the subject here. Auditions are an odd thing and putting together a set of arias that maximise your chances of employment often feels like a game of guessing the mindset of a mythical everypanel, while at the same time second-guessing your choices after every audition. If you're here expecting a recipe for the perfect audition portfolio, you're out of luck, I'm afraid. All I have to offer is more questions. I do hope that asking these in relation to each of your go-to or potential arias might just help you settle on a few choices and, as a result, give you some peace of mind. It might not, though...

Can you sing every note?

The most important question, and yet so often overlooked. I sang the Count's aria for years and with the stress of an audition I often struggled with what baritones often refer to as 'that %^&$ bottom A'. Coaches always said not to worry, because for one thing many top tier baritones did Count on the world's top stages with 'nothing down there', and therefore panels don't care about that as long as you have a stonking top F#. The thing is, if I fudge a note, regardless of whether the panel care (and despite what some coaches say, they might) - I do care, and it may put me off.

Same goes for coloratura. Don't be fooled by recordings or live performances of singers who have what I'd call 'approximate coloratura'. Just because they get away with it, doesn't mean you will in an audition. The truth is, with all these things, we need to set higher standards for ourselves as singers than what we're exposed to, especially in the polite British culture where coddling by teachers/coaches/music staff is a pleasant but not particularly constructive norm. If we don't expect more of ourselves then we're risking a decline in vocal standards across the board. But I was supposed to write about auditions...

Can you sing it any time day or night, with a 3-year-old at the piano?

The key to auditions is consistency, so make sure most of your rep is prepared so solidly that it is foolproof even at a 9am audition (yes, I've had one of those). You can have one aria that you only bring out when you feel the power flowing through you, though personally I prefer to stick to the solid stuff rather than vocal acrobatics I can't always nail. It's better to sing an immaculate Papageno or Masetto (so-called easy arias) than a pretty good Largo al factotum.

Is it controversial?

There is a reason most casting professionals recommend presenting standard repertoire. It gives them an instant frame of reference. From what you sing, they can extrapolate what roles you may be suitable for. Within standard repertoire, there are controversial arias - ones that can be sung in vastly different ways, about which everyone has strong opinions. This can refer to tempo, ornamentation, volume, character, etc. These are probably best avoided. If you take something to coaches and get the idea each coach wants it differently - find a new aria.

Do you care?

Why are you singing it? If it's just because someone told you it suits you, then don't bother. You need to enjoy singing the aria, otherwise how are the panel supposed to enjoy listening to you? Find joy in the singing, find something you care about and can identify with in the character. Don't take an aria just because you feel you should offer a Mozart/bel canto/German piece, for instance.

What does it show?

You want to send a clear main message - I can sing. The secondary message is - these are the things I can sing. Ideally you want to keep that second one as broad as possible while maintaining its clarity. I used to audition with Pelleas' tower scene, thinking it showed I could do French, difficult music and high singing. I was promptly told that all it shows is that I can sing Pelleas. That's not all that useful outside of a specific audition for the role. Then when putting together a 3-5 aria set, don't necessarily think each piece should show something different. They'll only hear one or two, and will want to look at your other offered options and be able to imagine how you'd sing them. If you offer 3 different fachs, they'll just be confused as to what jobs you're trying to go for.

Can you do the role now?

If not, probably don't bother offering the aria. There may be exceptions (specifically  covers / young artist productions), but offering Father from Hansel and Gretel at the age of 25 can send the wrong message - namely 'this guy has no clue'.

Do you know it too well?

The danger with overly familiar rep is that it can become under-energised in terms of performance, or a bit vague musically. Make sure you tighten all the screws every now and again. It's also good for the soul to introduce a new aria into circulation once in a while.

Of course, this mostly applies to general auditions. If you're going for a specific role, take the appropriate aria, on copy if necessary, plus pieces that are complimentary to that role. Taking a Handel coloratura aria to a Marcello audition is like bringing a knife... you know.

Well, that's it from me on this subject for now. I'm assuming singers out there can figure out their own equivalents for all my baritone aria references, otherwise they probably need more help than I can provide in a blog. In closing - don't blindly follow advice from teachers/coaches, listen to your instrument (it'll let you know if you're not ready for something yet, as long as you're not blinded by arrogance), and set high standards for yourself.

Why are you recording?

This Autumn is an odd one for me. For the first time in my life I turned down employment singing, in order to devote time to something else - producing recordings. Don't get me wrong, the singing (lessons, auditions, practice) is all going on as well, but for over the few weeks I've held about a dozen recording sessions, and there are more in the diary, which means I'm now focussing on this branch of my career more than I ever have before. What follows are some observations and thoughts that come from this newfound focus.

One of the first things that a lot of young singers don't quite appreciate is that recording, much like auditioning, is a skill that improves every time you do it. It may all be singing at its core, but we all know that singing in a room on our own, or with our teacher, is different than singing on stage, or in a rehearsal room, or in front of an audition panel. The appearance of a microphone (or 3) and cameras is a set of circumstances that I don't think many (if any) of us have been prepared for over the course of our singing studies. They can be intimidating for a whole host of reasons, but the first and foremost for a lot of us starting out in the profession, is the sheer novelty. Plus there's a guy in headphones operating all this high-tech gear! It takes some getting used to, and you have to trust me - that's ok. If you find it hard, you're not alone, and it gets easier each time you do it. It also helps if you have a clear idea as to why you're putting yourself through the financial and mental burden of putting yourself down on tape (or at least digital file).

Why are you recording? On the surface - because it has become expected of singers to have a demo reel, or at least some audio tracks that show what they sound like. Agents will insist on their singers getting professional-quality recordings made so that they can refer companies to them. Singers without agents may find that to apply for certain programmes, or even to get auditions for agents/companies, they will be asked to send in a recording. That's the prosaic reason we singers spend money we don't have on recordings which will be out of date within a year. A good recording will work for you. I got signed to an agent off the strength of my simple demo reel, I know people who have gotten work straight out of a simple video of them singing an aria. It is now the norm, everyone's doing them.

However, if your only reply to 'why are you recording' is the above, then depending on your experience, you may be setting yourself up for a disappointment. Peer pressure isn't the best motivator, and I often hear 'I hate doing this, but everyone seems to want recordings'. Yikes! Whatever happened to all that oh-so-healthy narcissism that all singers are supposed to have? It evaporates just when it might come in handy...

Being relatively inexperienced at something and feeling bullied into doing it - it's not ideal, is it? Allow me to offer some tips.

So you haven't recorded before? OK. It can be scary, but rationally it shouldn't be. Remind yourself that, unlike in an audition, you get to go again. You can sing until you deliver the best that you can (on that particular day :P ). You can cheat, splice, rest in between sections to keep the voice fresh. Everyone does it, because the fact is that listening to recordings is a harsher way of judging singers, because the baseline for that judgement is set by commercial CDs, where the great singers did in fact cheat (certainly from the 80s onwards). So do yourself a favour and don't be harsh on yourself for not being perfect. No one ever has been, so why should you?

Get used to recordings. If it's your first time, get some mates together and record one or two arias each, the one(s) you know best, the one(s) you can sing the socks off if woken up in the middle of the night. The things you enjoy singing, because joy translates to tape in a way that technique doesn't. Your pieces don't have to be difficult, they just need to show your voice. If the powers that be want to hear you sing difficult stuff, they'll ask you for it when they offer you that audition. For now, your recording only needs to say 'hi, this is what I sound like', not 'look at what I can do'. Fireworks are better live, and that goes for the vocal kind as well.

Record stuff you love singing, find a reason to record it. Believe that you're recording something in a way that it's never been sung before. After all, it's true - no one has heard a recording of your voice singing it! But also, put as much of a stamp on it as you dare. Annoyed that everyone breathes in a place that makes no musical sense? Show the world the way. Do you feel a phrase needs more time or stretch than anyone ever gives it? Or the opposite, you just wish it was simple and respectful of the composer's wishes, rather than self-indulgent? Get it on record and put it online! Be the change you want to hear ;) That's a great reason to want to record.

Or, stripped of the higher purpose, if it's just about doing what's expected, then make it easy for yourself. Forget it's a recording, just audition. Say you don't want the fancy cheating mumbo-jumbo, just to show what you are like without the bells and whistles, but with good quality. Sing each thing twice and leave it at that, pick the better take (it's what I ended up doing myself last time). It'll be imperfect - but in a good way. You'll tick the box and not go crazy doing so.

Always remember, the only thing you can ever achieve in a recording session is your best on the day. It may be 60% of your full best, and that's fine. Let it be fine. Then do it again when you can afford to, it'll be better. You'll be more used to the process, you'll have had some lessons in the meantime. Re-record the same repertoire, why not? And harness some of that narcissism that you pretend isn't there, but that actually got you where you are. Enjoy the fact that you sound better than last time, enjoy the time you get to spend on an aria to nail it as best you can... on the day ;) Joy of singing looks good on video, and it sounds good too. So don't deny the guy in headphones (or the internet) your joy and everything else you have to offer. And don't beat yourself up if it's not the best you've ever sung. Better a joyous 70% than a technique-fest of self-doubt that'll only get you up to 72% if you're lucky.

And just to end on a downer (not really, I hope) - the fact that you've recorded something doesn't mean you have to share it with others. I've made some demos myself that I never ended up using, but they were worth it as part of the learning curve. Pricey, sure, but not a waste.

Never believe that anything you do is a waste, it all feeds into the next great thing.

Are we a doomed generation of singers?

The other day I had 3 conversations with different people (an agent, an older colleague and one of my vocal peers) and in each of these chats I heard 'there just isn't enough work to go round'. It looks like it's pretty much official - times are hard.

As far as I can see there are two main reasons for this. Cuts to arts spending have meant that smaller opera companies aren't getting enough funding to pay performers properly, hence the rising number of profit-share projects, while larger companies have over the past few years capped their fees. This means that there now isn't a great deal of difference money-wise between working at the big six opera companies and at smaller outfits (Summer festivals or touring companies). In some ways it's a good thing - the country's top singers can be heard singing for smaller companies, thus evening out the standard of singing/performing across the board. However, with quite a few medium-sized and small/touring outfits dealing with their own funding cuts, there is less opera being put on, and young singers looking to make their mark and get seen on stage are competing in auditions with established pros, YAP alumni, singers who already have good reputations in the business.

You can't blame companies for going for a known quality, someone whom they've seen deliver the goods. There aren't many risk-taking casting people out there, although that's a misnomer, because if someone in casting knows their stuff, there shouldn't be much risk involved. The average standard of singing amongst conservatoire graduates is quite high and remarkably even, and often the only thing that sets the 'A-list' singers above them in a company's eyes is the reputation I mentioned, plus maybe a competition or YAP on their CV. My bold theory is that you could find any number of singers up to the task of matching anyone who gets cast in the UK these days. That's how many good singers there are out there, and yet remarkably few are breaking through, because there are fewer jobs, and everyone is competing for those that are left, rather than there being an entry-level tier and an established-pro tier of employment opportunities.

As the number of available jobs has been declining, the intake into music colleges has been rising at a pretty staggering pace. Now, you may think that's a pretty daft state of affairs, and you'd be right, but there are reasons for this. Colleges need students to make money, and when they started offering more places, there were still relatively plenty of opportunities out there, although a keen observer would have already felt that 'winter was coming'. For a while it sort of worked. Now though, we are seeing hordes* of hungry young singers flooding the market, filling the Summer festival choruses and raising their standard to a level that used to be reserved exclusively for the likes of Glyndebourne or full-time opera choruses. Depending on the amount of rehearsal, these being scratch ensembles, the musical side of things doesn't always equal the aforementioned big players, though it certainly can on occasion, but the raw noise that the chorus masters around the country get to play with is astonishingly good. Young, technically solid singers, hungry for work, eager to please. However, most of these singers have set themselves a time-limit on how long they will be content to sing in choruses, and all the time they are looking for that small role or big break, auditioning, trying to get a foot in the door... and competing for these opportunities against guys they've already read about in 'Opera', or people 5-10 years their senior who walk into the audition knowing everyone on the panel. No wonder quite a few of my peers are taking breaks or quitting outright. How long can you bash your head against a wall for? Or try to get a foot in the door to a pretty crowded room...

Too many singers, not enough jobs. Tough times. Is there any hope on the horizon? Well, Germany recently increased its arts expenditure by 5%, the first EU country to do so since the financial crash. Will the UK follow this example? Maybe in the name of making Britain Great again, post-referendum? Well, one can hope, but to be honest it's not looking good. There seems to be very little political pride in high culture at the moment, and the arts aren't even on the list of issues being addressed by the government or the opposition at the moment. No one seems to care.

So in light of all this doom and gloom (see what I did there?), what keeps me going? Why am I standing facing this wall with a manic 'have at you' glint in my eyes? Well, for one thing I'm not in it for the money. None of us are. We're driven by a need to sing, to challenge ourselves, to push our voices to the limits of what they can do and then exceed those limits. Opera singing should be an olympic event! We singers have that same drive that pushes athletes to keep assaulting that personal best. But that's the ego of what we do, it's why I sing for my own benefit. But there's another benefit, the people we sing to.

I'll leave you with this story: I was recently in the mountains around Zawoja in Poland, doing a bit of hiking and spending the night in a house that belongs to an old hippy, where everyone is welcome and it's a place to share music, a love of nature and ideas. Myself and a guy I'd just met were at the stereo, each trying to convince the other that their taste in music had virtue. He was explaining electro-trance to me, I was responding with folk rock and heavy metal. It was almost midnight. Suddenly the door opens, and a guy walks in from the cold night, and asks what we're doing. We say we're discussing music, to which he says 'excellent, I've brought an opera'. Well, the guy I was having my deep meaningful analysis of the intricacies of EDM and distorted guitar tone had never seen an opera. Neither had my friend who was there with us. But the new visitor insisted, especially once he found out what I do for a living. We ended up watching a DVD of 'La traviata' from Salzburg with Netrebko and Villazon, in Italian (of course) with German subtitles, so it was my job to explain every scene in Polish. A narrated screening of Verdi. We got to the end around 3am and I turned to Mr Electro-psychodellic-trance and asked 'did you like it'. He responded with 'I'm sorry, I can't speak... too much emotion', tears in his eyes. That's why we do opera, no matter how tough the times.


* What is the collective noun for singers? 

The pitfalls of music college

I had a rehearsal today and this is the conversation I had with the pianist afterwards:
- Really great line you've got going...
- Thanks, it's what I never managed to learn in music college.
- Yeah, it's because in colleges, when they teach people who can't sing properly, they teach them to micro-manage little things to be able to sing rep, rather than teach them to, you know...
- Sing properly?
That's harsh, I know, but having been out for a few years now I hear things like this a lot. I swap notes on teachers with my colleagues and many of them, having been prodigies in college and without a doubt formidable singers, seek out teachers who proceed to strip them down to basics and build them back up.

I was going to call this post 'Is music college worth it?', but ultimately decided against it. The truth is that going to music college is still the best way to get into the profession. It gives you something instantly recognisable on your CV, equips you with a set of contacts that you'd have to work incredibly long and hard to meet outside of that environment, and it immerses you in a blend of music-making and politics that will at some point probably beat some of the desire to sing out of you, or make you reassess the feasibility of your dream. All good things. If you survive college and still want to sing, you're doing well ;) It's not all bad, you'll make friends for life and the music will never fully leave you even if you decide on a different path. But is college the best place to learn to sing? Hmmm. Let's examine some of the pitfalls.

First off, if you don't have contacts at a college already, you will have little to no say in the matter of who will teach you. You will be assigned to someone, which is where luck comes in. Let's get this out in the open - I think there are more bad teachers out there than there are good ones. I also find that most people in the business either agree with me or go even further and say that truly good teachers are very hard to find. So if you are randomly assigned one, what do you reckon the chances of you being in the best hands are? Now, a distinction needs to be made between a bad teacher and a harmful one. Under a bad one, you'll simply progress more slowly, or not at all, or deceptively quickly but based on (or with a heap of) bad habits. With a harmful one, you will damage your instrument. You can, of course, change teachers, but it's a drawn out process at most colleges, and you'll have already wasted a lot of time and money before you realise a change is needed.

Money. College is expensive. Even with funding, it's ridiculous. Have a look at the fees and the amount of tuition you get. £9000/year gets you 30 singing lessons a year, plus other group activities like language, musicianship, and stagecraft classes. The going London rate for singing lessons is £70. Those 30 lessons will cost you £2100, leaving you with almost 7 grand to spend on coachings and language classes. Sure, you won't have access to a building to practice in, and you'll need to join a good music library too, plus you will have to think of a way to get some stage experience, but potentially you could get a lot more individual tuition outside college, and you'd be in complete control of the quality of said tuition. It can be done, and I know people who've done it, usually having already gained a degree in something other than singing. Actually, everyone upon leaving college does it, or should be doing it, because rest assured - we never stop learning (one way or another), and those who do quickly degenerate into poor singers.

There is one thing that college does reasonably well, though the means it employs aren't always the best - it's a good motivator. A course sets you goals and (regardless of how friendly and nurturing an atmosphere the institution strives for) puts you in competition with your peers. That is something that is difficult to match without a great deal of self-discipline. It's so nice to shift the responsibility for our own growth at least partly onto college, so we can then relax and do some studenty fun things, safe in the knowledge that if we don't actively fuck up, we are in the hands of a system that will keep us on an upward trajectory. It's safe. It is however not optimal in many ways, only one of which I'll now get into, before I bore you to death.

These goals that college sets are enforced by assessments. You will be judged according to a prescribed pace, on prescribed repertoire. You will be told what to sing, not only by your teacher and coaches, but also your department. Once you get far enough, you will be cast in roles, and not all of these will be appropriate for you at the time. Some people get lucky and only do suitable roles, others become the departmental work-horse (because they're dependable and have flexible voices) and do whatever roles happen to be needed to let some of the college stars shine. You may get lucky, but it is practically out of your hand. This is where my friend's observation holds true. In the whirl of college life, you will often find yourself working so hard and having so much to sing, that you will spend most of your time learning to sing the music in front of you, rather than learning to sing, period. And you will be doing it to deadlines, so you may end up doing it hurriedly, ergo sloppily. Your voice will cope, you'll still be young and strong in that youth, you will hopefully improve by being challenged and rising to those challenges, and you will be noticed for your successes. But be careful of the first signs of that youthful strength, stamina and flexibility beginning to fade. You may realise that you haven't been laying the best foundations for the superior strength, stamina and agility that is afforded by technique and experience, to take over.

There is no best way to learn to be a singer (after all, it's not just about the singing itself), there is only ever your way. Most mistakes and bad habits can be undone and fixed, and every experience you have (bad or good) will feed into the artist you become. But if you take nothing else from this text, do take a sense of responsibility for your own development. If you're unhappy in college, be brave enough to find another way. If you feel superbly comfortable in the conservatoire environment, take a step back and look at it critically, just to see if you aren't letting something slide.

The Tao of Singing

If I ever write a book on singing, that's what I'll call it*. And it won't really be about singing. I've never really found books on singing to be all that helpful. Jerome Hynes' 'The Four Voices of Man' gave me a few interesting ideas to explore with my teacher, but the others I've tried reading didn't really fire up my imagination or inspire me all that much. I'm currently working my way through 'We Sang Better' by James Anderson, where I found this line:

'It would seem that some philosophical mastery of self is developed when learning to sing well'

And indeed, the book emphasises the need for ease, patience, adhering to nature, not taking shortcuts, not manufacturing sound, etc. All things which are actually quite hard to achieve in the conservatoire-freelance model of singing 'career', where no one really has time to sit down and think about bringing about any kind of mastery of self. We work hard to achieve incremental goals, like assessment marks or successful auditions, and in order to do so we need to sound like opera singers pretty much from our late teens and early twenties. According to James Anderson, such a singing culture would have given 'the greats' of 1800-1960 cause for deep despair. And indeed, to those who don't quite fit the mould, who fall by the wayside on the conservatoire-YAP-stardom trail, it is all too easy to succumb to bouts of self-doubt and deeply sad frustration. In a world where singers are effectively mass-produced, we have become an expendable commodity, not without some worth, but easily replaceable nonetheless. If you see yourself as one of many, it's hard to find, cultivate and retain that spark which makes you unique. It's much easier to try and imitate those who have gone before, but imitate only that which is on the surface - their education and career choices, or the sound they make. It's harder to get to the core of what set the successful ones apart, be it dumb luck, or a unique brilliance which isn't actually a product of the singer-assembly-line, but something they've held onto despite that one-size-fits-all schooling.

So how does one take a step back from the operatic rat-race and find a zone where along with singing technique comes a philosophical mastery of self? Perhaps we've gone so far the wrong way, that we need to turn that idea on its head and say that to learn to sing well requires some philosophical mastery of self. After all, we are not machines, and even if we were, machines sometimes inexplicably need to be reset - switched off and on again. Our personal philosophy (and everyone has one, though few bother to try and articulate it) is like our Operating System, and as artists we really need a robust and bug-free OS. Something simple that doesn't clutter our minds, but only focusses on thoughts and ideas that actually work. Ideas that bring calm and optimism, even if they seem naive. 

If I were to write 'The Tao of Singing' it would be the singer's 'Little Book of Calm' (I recommend watching the relevant episode of Black Books). Debunking a few myths that have us 21st century singers tied up in knots, offering a more individual look at professional development and self-assessment, counselling patience and a look to the long game (the goal should be to be the last singer standing at 65, not the first one on the big stage at 25), pointing out the joy that can be found in singing at any level (which we so often forget to acknowledge or don't allow ourselves to experience), maybe even offering some reductive ideas about singing technique (I don't think it's as complicated as some of us make it out to be)... In my head it's a good book. 

Unfortunately it doesn't exist yet. It may never come to be. There is however a book out there that can be a balm for anyone who read the above and thought 'I need some of that in my life'. It's a book I came across in my mid teens and which I reread recently, it's short, funny, uplifting and calming. It's called 'The Tao of Pooh' by Benjamin Hoff and it explains the basic principles of Taoism through the characters from 'Winnie the Pooh'. It's a great first step to realigning ones view of the world, of the singing career, or whatever else may be confusing you. And it's a fun read. Give it a go, it may be the best book on singing you'll ever read, even though singing is never mentioned. 

Here are some quotes to support the above statement. Try reading them as though a singing teacher was saying them in a masterclass:

“The surest way to become Tense, Awkward, and Confused is to develop a mind that tries too hard - one that thinks too much.”

“Things just happen in the right way, at the right time. At least when you let them, when you work with circumstances instead of saying, 'This isn't supposed to be happening this way,' and trying harder to make it happen some other way.” 

“It means that Tao doesn't force or interfere with things, but lets them work in their own way, to produce results naturally. Then whatever needs to be done is done.” 

“Things may get a little odd at times, but they work out. You don't have to try very hard to make them work out; you just let them.” 

And my personal favourite:

“Rabbit's clever," said Pooh thoughtfully.
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit's clever."
"And he has Brain."
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit has Brain."
There was a long silence.
"I suppose," said Pooh, "that that's why he never understands anything.” 

* I have fond memories of reading and putting into practice 'The Tao of Kayaking' back when I was learning to white-water kayak. It was all about never fighting the river's current, but using it to get where you wanted to go. You can't win with Nature (though of course being an arrogant species, we often think we can), you can only work with it.

What is it that you actually want?

Auditions. Yuck! We all hate them. Some of us are good at them, others really struggle to show their best in that horrendously artificial environment. How good you are at auditions doesn't always reflect how good you are at the job of being a singer, because it doesn't have all that much in common with the process of rehearsing and performing an opera. Auditions don't afford you the opportunity to show if you're a good colleague, conscientious worker,a collaborative artist, quick to learn blocking or incorporate notes... You can show whether or not you can sing, and to an extent whether or not you can perform to a pretend audience. But you show one or two aspects of both of these - you give one reading of each piece you sing, despite the fact that 'on the job' you'll be experimenting with many different ones in collaboration with the MD, the director, cast members, designers, etc, and being married to your one reading can be very frustrating to everyone involved. You've heard the 'this is how I sing it' horror stories about legendary divas.

We all have to live with the fact that competition is fierce and we won't get all the jobs. But I for one prefer not to get a job for a solid reason. If I'm not on form in an audition, the rejection is easier to palate. If I feel I showed my best to the panel, then a rejection without feedback stings. If I get feedback that I can relate my audition experience to, then it's ok, I wasn't the right fit, and that's fine. But there are times when you get feedback that enrages you. 'He sang it very impressively, but it was a very conservative performance'. 

I make a choice about who the character is, say in this case an aristocrat, so a poised presence, not extrovert, with subtle flashes of emotion corresponding to the words. He's so important he doesn't need to do much, he draws people in, he isn't demonstrative. He's upper class, this is not a semaphore character. The audition room isn't vast, the venue the company will be performing in is fairly intimate as well, everyone will be able to see the subtleties. I also don't want to look like an overacting prat. So that's my choice, and I took it too far for that panel on that day. Damn.

And all I can think reading that feedback is: I wish they'd stopped me and asked for more. Or had me sing it again with some notes from them. Given me a shot at doing it their way. Checked to see if I respond to feedback on the fly. Instead they hear a second aria. Should I have made a polar opposite choice and overacted that one so they would think I can also do the middle ground and all the shades in between?

I have had auditions in which the panel was more involved. I once did an audition for Jonathan Miller, where he stopped me after verse one of 'Bella siccome un'angelo' and said to pretend he was Don Pasquale. He came out from behind the desk and reacted to every line I sang. When I got to the final round of the Opera North chorus auditions it took all day and consisted of a one-to-one coaching with a member of their music staff, a lovely informal interview with their chorus manager and head of casting, and then an audition run by a director who had me stage 3 different approaches to my aria. 

Those and similar experiences are the auditions I remember fondly, regardless of whether I get the job or not, because I feel that the panel have actually met me and had a proper taste of what I'm about. It feels fair. Walking into a strange room, singing to the dead eyes of disinterested or politely-indulgent people behind a desk, getting a 'thank you' and walking out with no idea of whether what just happened lined up with what they were looking for from the pieces I sang... Not so much.

I wish panels took more of a hands on approach. I feel they may be missing out, not only on my vast talents and superlative modesty*, but on lots of my favourite colleagues who confess to struggling in auditions, but whom I personally often rate a cut above some of the people who get the jobs, because they bring all the extra stuff to the table in the rehearsal room and on stage. And their standard of singing is just as high as that of the lucky job-getters, as are their instruments. Auditions are not the best way of casting anything, unless they're linked with previous experience of working with the singers in question and seeing them perform in real-world circumstances. But that means new faces are at a disadvantage, so to give them a chance I really think devoting 3-4 minutes of a 10min audition slot to doing a bit of a workshop on their aria would give employers a better idea of what kind of singer they're dealing with. But hey, that's just one man's opinion...

* sarcasm

Go go gadget score!

It's been a while (again, sorry) and what's more this entry will be purely functional rather than deeply philosophical. You'll have to wait until next week for something deeper, but I promise it's coming (spoiler: it'll be about auditions).

This post has been a long time coming, as I've been using my iPad for the bulk of my singing work for 5 years now. I was finally nudged to post it after being yet again asked how I get my scores onto the tablet, and why I bother.

It all started in 2011 in Banff, where I saw a tenor colleague taking his iPad into a coaching... It was an instant case of 'I want one!'. And while I do, of course, use my tablet for all the usual browsing, email, video consumption, games, etc, it has actually become my musical workhorse, to the point where I can't really remember how I used to function as a singer without it. I did function, and I probably could again, but it really has become an essential tool in my workflow. And I'll tell you why ;)

First of all, the Apple naysayers will ask why an iPad? Well, there are 2 reasons. The first is the 4:3 aspect ratio of the screen (not widescreen), which means that when you view sheet music on it, it corresponds to the dimensions of a standard sheet of paper. The second takes me into a list of all the apps I use, said list being the main reason behind this post.

forScore 
Only available on iOS, this app is what I fire up 99% of the time I work on any music. It's a pdf-viewer first and foremost. You scan in music, download it from IMSLP, buy digital copies, or get pdfs any number of other ways (straight from a composer's laptop), and forScore displays them on your iPad. What sets it apart from other pdf-viewers are the various things you can now do:
- Annotate - you can write on your score! Both with the ipad keyboard and with your finger/stylus. You can scribble, draw, in any colour you like, and also highlight. You can save a version of your score with your singery notes, and then write in staging notes on another version, etc.
- Share - you can send scores from your iPad by email, either with or without your scribblings
- Listen - you can assign recordings from your music library (the Music app, including the wealth of Apple Music) to a score and listen back to them while perusing the score. You can even slow them down (while preserving pitch) and loop sections.
- Play - forScore has a built in piano instrument, so you can play an onscreen keyboard
- Record - there's also an audio recorder, so you can record lessons, rehearsals, practice sessions, and these are attached to whatever score you are performing

Avid Scorch 
Simply put, this app plays back Sibelius files as you read the score. The sounds it uses for playback are horrible and always metronomically precise, but if you're learning contemporary music and your piano chops aren't quite up to the task of giving yourself an idea of how the thing is meant to sound, Scorch comes to the rescue. You can adjust the tempo to practise and also change the volume of parts in the score. It's fiddly and certainly not perfect, but it is useful.

TurboScan
To answer the question of how I get scores into forScore, I always ask my employers if they happen to have access to pdf files of the music. More and more often they do, which is great news for e-musicians (or should that be iMusicians?), providing you treat these as hired scores if they're in copyright: delete them after your contract is up. If the employer doesn't have a pdf score, I will try IMSLP, which I'm sure most musicians are familiar with. Failing that, I scan in hard copy scores I already own as and when I need them, for which I use TurboScan on my phone. It lets me take photos of each page and converts them to pdf. If you take 3 photos of each page, the app cleverly focuses on different areas, so you're guaranteed a high quality scan. I did own a conventional scanner, but have found this method is actually quicker for me, and lets me send the pdfs to my iPad over AirDrop very conveniently. I scan at a rate of around 100 pages per hour, so yes, getting an entire score over to pdf is a time investment, but I've found it to be very much worth it.

I also own and sometimes use music notation apps Notion and NotateMe, the latter having a useful feature called PhotoScore, which lets you take a photo of a page of music and have the app play it back. Besides that it's always handy to have a free piano app and whatever dictaphone app your tablet/phone comes with. Spotify also deserves a mention, though it isn't compatible with forScore in the way that Apple Music is.

With all these goodies loaded onto your iPad you can be productive practically anywhere you go, as long as you have headphones and don't mind the occasional weird glance from people around you as you hum or sotto voce falsetto your way through an opera in public. If you're doing a contract where you rehearse 3-4 operas, frequently more than 1 a day, you'll save yourself some back-ache by only carrying a tablet rather than 600 pages worth of scores. You'll always have copies of your audition pieces to hand, ready to print (with or without your scribbled annotations, for which pianists will be grateful). The battery generally lasts a full day of music use with no problems (just be professional and don't play games during rehearsals) and forScore is a very stable app, I've even performed from it on occasion (though I try to avoid it just in case something did go wrong). For lessons, coachings, music learning and rehearsals the iPad can be a wonderful tool, so if you already own one, why not give it a go? And I'm pretty sure there are Android equivalents to the apps listed above just a quick google away for those who don't buy into the Apple hype ;)