A felicitous expression has been circulating in the business community. (The business community is expert at finding clever names for existing phenomena.) It’s called Blue Ocean Strategy
(www.blueoceanstrategy.com). The idea, developed by authors W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne in the 2005 book of the same name, is that businesses can find success by generating new demand, not by competing in already crowded markets.
Swim in the blue ocean—the unexplored parts of the market—and you will find greater profits and growth than in the red ocean, where numerous forces compete for a limited amount of business. In the red ocean, the water is bloody from competitors chewing each other up. In the blue ocean, you avoid competition entirely by creating new customers, not fighting for existing ones.
For example, Cirque du Soleil became a multimillion dollar corporation by distinguishing itself from other circuses. It offers character-driven, multimedia experiences—which appeal to adults as well as children—enabling the company to market itself to a wider audience. Cirque abandoned the costly elements of circuses—star acts and live animals—to create a completely unique type of entertainment that has no practical equivalent.
You can easily find other examples of blue ocean thinking. Not many people carried around portable music players before the iPod arrived. But when it did, the sleek, easy-to-use device became the must-have accessory for everyone from middle-schoolers to commuters. From the primordial swamp of early social media (Anyone remember Friendster? Anyone still use MySpace?), fun and intuitive Facebook took off.
These are just some inventions that rose to prominence by being different enough from the competition to attract widespread appeal. Instead of outdoing competing enterprises, they set the standard in a new field.
What does this have to do with a singing career? If you think about it, singers are set up to battle it out in the red ocean, not to brave uncharted waters. We all receive similar educations, studying the same classical canon and learning the trade through the same performing experiences. We are taught that hard work and a network of professional connections spell the best chance to have a career. If we are extremely lucky and talented, we will stand out from the competition and swim with the big fish. Otherwise, we fight for what we can.
Fortunately, the music world is experiencing a sea change of its own. Singers still find success along the traditional career path—grad school, Young Artist Programs, apprenticeships, management—but more and more, innovative musicians are making names for themselves in their own open blue waters.
If you are considering adapting Blue Ocean Strategy for your career, there are a few ways to do it. You can think about singing opera in nontraditional places, you can sing nontraditional music, or you can do something that may not involve singing but still serves the field.
We are lucky to live during a time when classical music is doing some major soul searching and reinvention. Major institutions—especially opera houses—are exploring ways to bring opera to new audiences and break down the barriers to participation. Numerous companies present innovative productions in unexpected places, such as bars, black box theaters, and galleries. Take a page out of their playbook and think about places in your community that might be amenable to an opera night or a set of site-specific scenes.
Opera on Tap (www.operaontap.org) is a prime example of that model. Founded by singers who wanted to share their art with more people and in casual settings, it now boasts 12 chapters and, in the case of New Orleans, an affiliation with a professional opera company. Lots of people sing opera. How many take it to the people?
If you feel that your voice type restricts you to only a few roles, consider the idea that you may be limiting yourself. Contemporary music does not play the role that it should in our educations, which often makes it an overlooked field in our professional lives. But composer-singer collaborations offer tremendous potential for performers who thrive on close relationships, refreshing repertoire, and career paths that will surprise you.
Exhibit A: Caroline Shaw. This young woman considered herself more of a musician (voice and violin), but she pursued her interests in composition far enough to be accepted into the Princeton doctoral program. She wrote “Partita for 8 Voices” for the ensemble Roomful of Teeth, which she also performs with. Together, they explored alternative vocal techniques, like Tuvan throat singing and yodeling. The group recorded “Partita” in 2012, which won Shaw this year’s Pulitzer Prize for music. Not a bad star to hitch your wagon to.
In forging your own nontraditional career, you will find yourself strengthening and even enjoying many nonmusical skills. Being a musical entrepreneur is like opening your own restaurant—be prepared to do everything your business demands, not just cook your killer fettuccine. Whether you create your own opera projects or join up with a nonclassical community, you will spend a lot of time setting schedules, scouting locations, developing a Web presence, reaching out to the press, fundraising, and managing logistics. This might sound like a laundry list of drudgery if all you want to do is sing, but it is exactly the same as what you would be doing if you were exclusively pursuing a solo career.
And if your broader goal is to strengthen classical music, a knack for business can contribute more than you may imagine. For example, in 1935 the Metropolitan Opera was struggling to recover from the effects of the Great Depression. Eleanor Robson Belmont, a leading Broadway actress, became the first woman to serve on the Met board of directors and envisioned rallying the broader public to support the Met and opera appreciation in general. She founded the Metropolitan Opera Guild, which continues to fundraise for the Met and create innovative opera education programs. However distinguished Mrs. Belmont’s stage career might have been, she accomplished more for art by becoming an arts leader.
Certainly, throughout a career it is worthwhile to explore different options. But if you feel you are not the best suited to the crowded red ocean, think about what your creative life might be like in the big blue sea. As an old Chinese proverb says, the diver for pearls plunges deep.
