My So-Called Opera Life

Day Job. Parallel Career. Side Hustle.

As creatives, we’ve all heard about them and probably have had one (or many). However, we can often be made to feel like we’re not serious about our art if we have to take a day job. 

A successful singer should be able to make a living only with her art, right?

Wrong.

In today’s episode we talk about the stigma around having a day job, share ideas about how to make your day job work for your singing career, and get real as we share our own struggles with day jobs while we find our way to “success” as opera singers.

Questions, comments, complaints? Do you have a correlating career that you think is great for opera singers? Email us! [email protected] Send us a DM on Instagram!

And don’t forget to use #mysocalledoperalife on social media for a chance to be featured, as well!

Music:

“Basic Implosion”, “Thinking Music” and “Too Cool” by  Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Sometimes our dreams can seem impossible to achieve. Sometimes we’re working hard to achieve them and we’re still feeling like we’re just running in place. So, how do we get off the treadmill and actually join the race? We pull back the curtain in today’s episode and reveal the nitty-gritty of our daily routines. Prepare...

Sometimes our dreams can seem impossible to achieve. Sometimes we’re working hard to achieve them and we’re still feeling like we’re just running in place. So, how do we get off the treadmill and actually join the race?

We pull back the curtain in today’s episode and reveal the nitty-gritty of our daily routines. Prepare for a deep dive into planners, scheduling, and our favorite tools for effective time management!

We also zoom out to take a look at our larger, long-term goals, specifically to talk about how goal setting can be a means to empowerment rather than being limiting. We face some common fears about goal setting head on, and share our own stories of how we’ve learned to turn our goals into actions.

Questions, comments, complaints? Want to share your insider tips on scheduling/setting goals? Email us! [email protected] 

And don’t forget to use #mysocalledoperalife on social media for a chance to be featured, as well!

Notable Mentions:

Scheduling/Planners/Productivity ResourcesGoogle Calendar Google TasksBullet JournalMy Infinite AgendaGetting Things DoneGoal Setting and Career Planning ResourcesCindy Sadler’s The Business of SingingAnn Baltz coachingYear CompassYour Best Year

Music

“Basic Implosion” and “Too Cool” by  Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Photo credit: Marcelle McGuirk/@soaringsoprano

Not ones to feel defeated by rejection, Marcelle and Elise have a candid conversation about the problems with the current YAP application process and share their ideas for how it can be revised.  Opera America’s Guide to Choosing a YAP Are you someone on the other side of the table (admin, artistic director, etc.)? We’d...

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Kristen Seikaly is a blogger, content writer, and creative writer. She also happens to be an ex-opera singer. She’s got a MM from Westminster Choir College in Voice Performance and Pedagogy and has performed in venues such as the Kimmel Center and Academy of Music, and has participated in operatic productions with companies such as...

The hardest part of audition season can be making those pesky pre-screening recordings! How good does the audio have to be? Do they need to see my shoes? Should I spend hundreds of dollars on them? Short answers: good enough that it sounds like you; yes, if they’re fab; and NO. On this episode, we...

The hardest part of audition season can be making those pesky pre-screening recordings! How good does the audio have to be? Do they need to see my shoes? Should I spend hundreds of dollars on them? Short answers: good enough that it sounds like you; yes, if they’re fab; and NO.

On this episode, we give you the down and dirty on how to use the equipment you already have (aka your smartphone) to get you good quality DIY recordings! Marcelle shares tips she learned from Ney Mello (during a masterclass given at the Russian Opera Workshop a few years back) on best practices for leveraging that tiny mic to show off all of your operatic prowess. 

We also talk about some tools we found that help make the recording setup easier:

Pop Socket

Cell Phone Mount for Tripods

If you’re interested in using an external mic, we’ve had good results with these, but they aren’t necessary (your phone is good enough, really!):

Blue Snowball mic

Shure mic for iPhone

(PS don’t forget to listen to them before sending them off to anyone!)

We’re joined briefly by Kathy Bell, as she shares her take on what the “so-called opera life” means to her! You can tell us what your opera life means to you by tagging us on social media and we might feature you on the show!

We also talk about the incredible ENAensemble and the wonderful working environment that they cultivate for their artists. Opera companies, take note!

And our last shout out goes to the amazing operatic aerialist, Marcy Richardson, and her appearance in the movie “Hustlers” Go see it!!!

Questions, comments, complaints? Email us! [email protected]

Music:

“Basic Implosion” and “Too Cool” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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Audition season is gearing up and application deadlines are fast approaching! On today’s episode we chat about how we sift through the mounds (a literal f*ckton, amirite?) of audition notices on YAP Tracker and find the opportunities that are right for us. Mostly, we geek out over the spreadsheets we use to collect audition data...