The 2018 Classical Singer Convention in Boston - Recap time!

Christine's Masterclass "Sing in German"at the CS Music Convention in Boston 2018

If you were at the Classical Singer Convention in Boston, thank you for stopping by the GVAI table and for attending Christine’s masterclass, “Sing in German.” Christine came back incredibly impressed with the talent she heard at the convention. Congratulations to everyone for participating - it’s hard work to go to and sing at a music convention. All of your preparation and hard work did not go unnoticed!

Some things to remember to do now that you are back from the convention:

• Contact your teachers and music collaborators to thank them. If you have their physical address, it will mean even more to them to send a handwritten thank you note. If not, an email will suffice. Most musicians will not remember to do this - but thank you notes should be a standard part of your business in music.
• Think about how you want to continue (or not continue) your current collaborations. If you had a great experience working with a pianist from your area, maybe you want to schedule a recital with them or use them for a future competition.
• Think about what you learned at the convention that you still need to work on. Maybe you realized after taking Christine’s class about singing in German that you have a long way to go on your German diction. Consider taking a local German class or scheduling private skype diction lessons with Christine herself!
• Follow-up on business cards for networking. If you received business cards from speaking with anyone at a table, be sure to follow-up with an email thanking them for their time. Right after the convention is when they will still remember your face and interaction with them. You want to cement that in their brain by following-up right away!
• Consider how you were able to network. Did you find yourself hanging out more with your friends than actually meeting new people? Maybe next time you may want to tell your friends you’ll meet them later, but that you want to do some networking. Heck, they may be thinking the same thing! Or, maybe you found that you tried to network, but you felt shy and weren’t sure how to meet new people. Use this year to practice networking so that you can make the most of it at the convention next year. There are tons of resources out there on how to network. Check out articles online, Youtube videos on the topic, and books about business networking. Most importantly, practice it in daily life.
• If you made your list of goals to achieve at the convention, take a look at them again. Did you achieve them all? What can you improve the next time you attend? Make a list of these goals for next time and write an action plan to reach them. You can always pull this list out again later closer to next year’s convention and refine your list, but it’s good to start goal-setting now.
• Take a look at the masterclasses. Which ones were you able to go to that you would find worthwhile attending again? Which teachers were good that you want to see again? Which classes did you miss that you want to make sure you attend next time? Write all of these answers down! Keep them with your list of goals for next year in a file. It will be that much easier to plan your next convention trip.
• What did you learn that was new? What questions do you still have? What positive and negative feedback did you receive regarding your performance? These are things that would be great to bring back and discuss with your teacher. Your teacher will know your voice best and will be able to tell you what they think is worth considering, and also be able to answer these questions. Discuss everything you learned with your teacher and implement these new things into your regular practice sessions.
• Take time to think about all of your observations at the convention. What did others do that was good? How can you implement what they did? It’s okay to steal ideas! Say someone brought their business cards with their headshot on it - but your business card doesn’t have a headshot. Their business card was more memorable. Time to make new business cards!
• Look at your finances. Did you budget well? Did you over-budget or under-budget? If you under-budgeted, how can you make up that money? Make sure you are financially sound and assess if the convention will be financially worth it for you to attend again. Did you get enough bang for your buck? We hope so - but if not, maybe you want to consider a different convention or learning experience to invest in.

Christine enjoyed meeting former GVAI students at the convention and supporting them during their auditions. 

Okay, I know, I know, that was a lot to read. Basically, here are the key takeaways:

• What did you learn? Do it in daily practice.
• What do you want to do next time? Write it down. Keep it organized and somewhere you’ll remember.
• Who did you meet? Keep all your contacts in a centralized, organized place. P.S. A short description of how/where you met them is good.
• What feedback did you receive? Discuss it with your teacher.
• What worked? Take note, do it again.
• What didn’t work? Take note, don’t do it again.

Here are a few notes based on what Christine heard and saw at the convention:

• For male voices, try not to darken your sound in order to sound older. In your head, we know you might think you sound younger, but really it does sound better to the audience when you are singing at your natural level of brightness.
• For all young auditionees, try not to push your voice to sound bigger than you are! This is a bad habit that could hurt your voice down the road. We know it’s tempting to do it, but trust us, your voice will grow with time. Patience is idling your engine instead of grinding your gears.

If you didn’t make it into semifinals or finals, it can be disappointing. It can be especially hard when you are out of town in a different environment to deal with this rejection. Here are some of our best tips for dealing with feelings of rejection:
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• Remember - different judge, different day, different winner. These competitions are subjective. If there was a different judge or if the competition was held on a different day, there may be a different winner.
• Put it in perspective. In the grand scheme of things, this one competition does not define your future or current career as a musician. Plenty of other musicians have faced rejection in competition, only to come back and win everything. If Renee Fleming can lose competitions and still be the Met’s Prima Donna, you can too.
• Embrace the critical. If you were given feedback about how you can perform better, that is the best, most amazing thing! Too often, people just tell us “oh, that was so good!” In no world is that helpful feedback. If we never receive critical feedback, we can never get better. Critical feedback is a gift. Consider it as a positive thing.
• Your piece was only three minutes of your life. The judges only got a 3 minute screenshot of who you are. You cannot be summed up in three minutes. Take a page out of Taylor Swift’s playbook and if you had a bad audition or received bad feedback, “shake it off.”
• If you need to go outside and take a breather, it’s okay. Just do it. Take your ten minutes to feel all your emotions, but don’t let it affect the rest of your experience. There are still tons of things to learn and people to meet while you’re there. All is not lost!

If you attended the Classical Singer Convention, what did you learn? What takeaways would you add to our list? Be sure to comment with your experience! Also, if you want to receive helpful music advice for singers straight to your inbox, consider subscribing to our email list.

We put out a new blog every month! (As mentioned in our last blog, this will be my last blog contribution. I’m headed back to school!)

However, Christine will still be continuing our regular blog series for singers.

Auf wiedersehen! Thanks for reading!

Sincerely, Anikka