Is there a defining moment in your studies when you went from “singer” to “classical singer”? I can’t put my finger on an exact event, but I know that for me it happened during college. I arrived in my freshman year all gung-ho for music in all its forms. I auditioned for musicals, played guitar, and arranged folk songs in my time away from my harmony and theory studies.
By the time I reached my senior year, however, I was an opera major and my stereo rarely deviated from classical vocal CDs. On one hand, it was good to become more focused and specialized—but looking back, I feel like my world brainwashed me into becoming a musical snob. The lines invisibly drawn between different types of singers had us defining ourselves by the kind of music we listened to and performed, and the disdainful attitude many classical professionals had towards other genres rubbed off on us.
So, I almost didn’t take that role in Jesus Christ Superstar.
I had auditioned on a whim, the summer before my senior year, for a production by the Boston Rock Opera. When they offered me a chorus role, I had to do some soul-searching: Would I damage my voice? Would it look bad on my résumé? Would it interfere with my availability for the school operas?
Eventually, I decided to go for it—and I’m glad I did. It changed my life.
I was the one classical musician in the production, thrown together with a bunch of Boston’s local rock gurus. When I fell among them, I didn’t know who they were—but soon I would come to know each of their individual relevancies to the scene: the founders of the Boston Rock Opera., the publisher of the local rock “zine,” the international rock star, the frontmen and frontwomen of the city’s greatest underground bands.
It took me the length of the run to adjust to this new cultural setting, to the drinking and smoking around me, the late nights out, the recording studio, the microphones—and the incredible level of talent I had never suspected was there.
Had the conservatory attitude lied to me? Classical musicians were supposed to be miles above rock musicians in every skill. But here were shaggy-haired, multi-instrumentalist/composers who wanted to talk to me about the 12-tone system and could rattle off the name of every Richard Strauss opera in their sleep. One had studied at the New England Conservatory, another at Eastman. And they could all put on an amazing show.
It was the start of a long journey for me. I began going to their bands’ shows, and I sensed immediately that here were things here I needed to learn: namely, that rock musicians have another way of performing and promoting their art—and it works. So, I got myself even more involved. I attended their concerts regularly, I listened to their CD’s—and eventually, I joined them.
While fully living out my classical music life, I started an original rock band on the side. Experiencing first-hand how difficult it is to be in a band gave me so much respect for serious rock musicians. Personality conflicts, group composition, and logistical matters (concert next week, guitarist just quit—what to do?) all add up to a challenging but rewarding experience.
Best of all, I got what I was after: lessons to bring to my classical music life. Here are some of those lessons. Choose what is appropriate for your own career.
Fans
Do people like your performances enough to come back and see you again? If so, you have the start of a fan base.
We all have a hard time thinking of our audience as “fans.” It’s easier to think: “Nobody really cares that much about what I do.”
Stop that kind of thinking—it can be self-fulfilling! If you don’t think your music is worth caring about, why should other people? Think of your whole package: your voice, your image, your performing abilities, and the types of music you do. Is it something people can get even remotely excited about? If you can get them remotely excited—enough to check out your Web site, buy your CD, or come to your next recital—chances are you can feed that interest and make it grow. Assume that many people who come to one of your performances will want to come to more, if you make it easy for them. That means they need to join your…
Mailing List
Before the last song of each set, the frontman for the band announces that a mailing list—and CDs for sale— are available at the back table. If someone is even a tiny bit interested in your concert, they’ll add their e-mail address to the list. Congratulations: a new junior member of your fan club!
Forward-thinking classical musicians are picking up on this practical and simple tactic. Collect as many consenting e-mail addresses as you can, then before every performance or set of performances, every CD release or other grand event, you send out a mass e-mail. Short and to the point (though humor and a friendly tone are usually appreciated), containing the essential info (time and place, directions, ticket cost), your e-mails will inform your fans about upcoming opportunities to experience your art, and remind them that you’re out there! Think of how much money big business pays for billboards and blimps to do just that. Can’t you afford a simple e-mail?
Just be careful not to spam them with more e-mails than you’d like to receive from a company you may only have a passing interest in. You don’t want to scare those junior members into unsubscribing! (And please, don’t forget unsubscribe instructions!) Your hardcore fans (which you have already, even if it’s just your mom), on the other hand, will eat up your every word. For them, we have…
Merchandising
Next to the mailing list and CDs on the back table at rock performances, you can always find T-shirts emblazoned with the performers’ name or logo. Usually black (attractive on everyone, and not cheap-looking like white) but sometimes another color (depending on the image of the artist), T-shirts come in at least standard and baby-doll styles. (Oversized “T”s for girls are soooo ‘90s.) Other merchandising options abound, most popularly bumper stickers and mini-buttons. Sometimes these smaller items are available for free—free goodies for them, free advertising for you!
Why would people buy a T-shirt advertising your business? Because they are so excited about you that they want to get the word out. Or because they feel hip being in on the latest underground artist before everyone else. Or because it looks cool. (Don’t underestimate the importance of that last one!)
Think about your image. Do you have something worthy of a stranger’s bumper? “Amanda White, Soprano” is probably not gonna cut it for me. But a concert tour T-shirt from my last recital, “Coloraturas Have More Fun,” with a cartoon on the front and a list of composers on the back, could make a nice souvenir, especially in the case of a concert you are performing more than once. (You are, of course, giving a performance worthy to be remembered.)
Another good thing about such merchandise items: they make good giveaways for people who win contests or help you out with things such as…
Flyers
Whenever I distribute flyers for my recitals, I face walls papered ceiling-to-floor in colored printouts from rock bands playing all over town, and not a single flyer for a classical music event. Why aren’t we putting up signs? Because “no one who sees them will want to come”? You have to believe in your product if you want other people to believe.
So where to post? Start by determining what kind of people you want to come to your performance. But let’s be realistic: You want as many people as possible. So use your imagination, and keep your eyes open! Many of your local eateries and shops have bulletin boards for just such purposes. Colleges are full of places, and what about youth hostels (which cater to young adults traveling around just looking for adventure and to experience local culture)? They’re always looking for something to do at night!
In addition to your posters, you should have smaller flyers to hand out or leave where you can’t put up posters. Make sure you give them to all your friends from the last opera you did and everyone in your studio, because classical music needs to build a sense of…
Community
How often do you go to classical concerts? Not just the big money ones, but also your community orchestra, the college operas and scenes programs (and not just from your own school), the lunchtime concert series at church? How can we expect others to support us if we don’t support each other?
When they’re not rehearsing, rock musicians regularly spend nights at the local clubs. They could be there as friends, as fans, or as both. But they’re out there, watching, listening, talking to each other. (Networking, anyone?) And, best of all, they’re working with each other. A typical rock show will have three different bands performing one after the other.
Do three concerts seem like too much to sit through? It is.
You’re not expected to sit through a rock concert. That’s why rock musicians know…
Audience Attention is Your Responsibility
At a classical concert, the audience is expected to sit quietly in their seats and to applaud at the appropriate moments. If they are bored they can do nothing but suffer in silence. You might not even notice their boredom, expressed only in such subtle ways as a slump in their posture, or a glazed-over look in their eyes.
At a rock concert, however, these societal expectations do not exist. You usually don’t even sit down. You can wander around, get drinks, play pool, and talk to your friends. You can treat the band onstage with your rapt attention, or think of them as an obstacle to shout over when trying to have a conversation with that cute guitarist from the opening act.
Rock musicians must contend with a lot more distractions to get an audience’s attention, and it’s pretty obvious if it’s not working. If it’s working, people are standing in front of you, watching you, and bobbing their heads to the music. If it’s not, people are congregated away from the speakers and yelling in each other’s ears, trying to drown you out.
You don’t have the right to complain that you have a bad audience, because they have no obligation to listen to you. If you want their attention, you have to earn it.
Audience disinterest is less obvious in the classical scene—but that doesn’t mean your responsibility to your audience changes. They’ve done their part: they’ve shown up. Now it’s your turn to fulfill your part of the deal: entertain them. Do that, and you’ll likely get good…
Reviews
Every band out there with a CD has a review somewhere. It could be in a local paper or magazine, or it could be on the Web site of someone who reviews shows and CDs as a hobby. Some underground magazines’ pages are made up exclusively of indie band interviews and reviews. The reviewers in such publications are not professional writers. Usually, they are musicians themselves who are getting nothing out of it but a free CD, who do it just because they love music and love expressing their opinions.
These reviews are great. They are publicity for you, they allow you to get honest feedback, and they let each of us know what all the others are doing.
Our community of classical singers has nothing like this, that I know of. The major performances get reviews, but even then, the singers performing the major roles in an opera are lucky to get a sentence of their own in print. So where do we get potential reviewers? In rock, you’re supposed to not care what anyone thinks (not to mention they have a larger community, so they can afford to have a few enemies). But we classical musicians have to be more careful not to step on any egos—so we’re probably not going to review each other’s shows, unless it’s anonymously.
I can think of only one solution: If you know of any music lovers not directly involved in the classical music community, see if you can talk them into writing up their opinions on our little concerts and submitting them somewhere. (A Web site will do in a pinch!) After all, people love sounding smart and getting on their soapboxes to let the public know what they think. And before you know it, our own fanzine could be a real possibility down the road!
In the meantime, if you have a night off tonight, call up a couple of your singer friends, look at your local arts calendar—and have a singers’ night out at a recital. Drag an aspiring writer along to review it, and at intermission, see if you can’t schmooze a few more e-mail addresses onto your mailing list. It’ll be worth the effort when you see somebody walk down the street with your face on his or her T-shirt.
