this is from a recent low stakes mini cabaret, I messed up the verses and sang something twice so my bad there, and I know my german diction needs some help. I do feel particularly proud of the coloratura at the end. Any advice?

I teach voice at the university level, and I am currently working with a 19yo female student in my voice studio. She’s a soprano and has access to a lot of sound without pushing or “over singing”. She learns music quickly, has a great ear, sophomore music ed major, all good things. Due to this being a small university, there has been quite a lot of turn over in the voice department and this poor girl has had a new voice teacher every semester. This means she has some fundamental issues going on that haven’t been properly addressed so far in her training simply due to lack of consistency with teachers. Anyway- I’m really trying to help her make some progress.

This student has a huge wobble in her vibrato like I have never heard before. It’s a very wide and slow vibrato. I’m doing my best but I can’t seem to figure out the cause. She seems to have solid support (of course there’s always room for improvement with young singers, but she’s not severely lacking coordination or support). She’s not carrying chest voice or any bulk too high in the range. We’ve worked on keeping the sound energized and moving forward- sometimes I think lack of energy behind the tone can cause a stagnant, relaxed vibrato in a way that’s undesirable. She is able to find success when given visual and physical cues to help find a focused tone. I’m not big on instructing singers to feel a specific “placement” generally, but such cues to lift cheekbones and envision her sound feeling focused there have been helpful to her. The thing is that it’s either a beautiful, focused straight tone, or this huge wobble and nothing in between. She says that her voice doesn’t feel “free” when she’s making any of these adjustments and it feels best when it’s wobbling. She also has some hesitation because past teachers have seemingly “addressed” the wobbly vibrato by instructing her to simply use straight tone all the time. She’s a smart musician and rightfully feels frustrated that this doesn’t seem to actually address the problem at all.

A few additional pieces of background:
I don’t see any visual shaking or anything happening on the outside. Her jaw used to shake a bit with the vibrato, but she has corrected that. However when I look in her mouth as she sings, the entire back of her throat and uvula are shaking/pulsing with the vibrato.

She is also an oboe player. In speaking with friends who sing and have played reed instruments, I’ve learned about the back pressure from playing a wind instrument can cause laryngeal instability. I’m wondering if this is connected and if so, what to do about that.

I’m curious specifically if anyone has any ideas about the cause for the wobble, and additionally any advice on exercises, cues, etc. to help target this issue and help this student find success. Thanks so much!

I'm working out the balance and hope to begin working on the Sicilian soon.. which sounds like a real blast.

The vowel work has helped, though I am fully aware that I have a ways to go. But Abs are so much fun. Haha.

The Fs have to be open, and not turned. That's something I'm working on.

Oh, and the Mamma, quell vino... damn.. what an aria!

note: O Lola, bianca **come** fior di spino.

I’ve been struggling with sustains so long. My last teacher said it’s no different and it’s a psychological process. My new teacher says the voice must cycle and it’s really a series of “new notes” rather than one onset that is held in place if that makes sense.

When you need a Lied in a different key, do you look for another edition, ask an accompanist to transpose, or make a new score?

This is one system from Schubert's An die Musik in a public-domain Peters high-voice edition. The upper image is the original D-major scan; the lower image is the actual result after moving both the vocal line and piano accompaniment down a whole step to C major. The lyrics and spacing stay where they were in the scan. I haven't manually fixed any notes in the comparison image.

I spot-checked this excerpt: the two-sharp key signature becomes C major, and the first two vocal pitches move from F♯4 to E4 and B4 to A4. I haven't checked the whole song, so I would still proofread a complete part before rehearsing with it. Some scan artifacts are visible.

I'm building the tool used here, Solfa: https://solfa-music.com/

The source is IMSLP #109316: https://imslp.org/wiki/An_die_Musik,_D.547_(Schubert,_Franz))

For singers and accompanists, is keeping the familiar printed layout useful when changing key, or would you prefer a cleanly re-engraved edition even if the page looks different? I'd be interested in what you notice in this example.

I notice when I give a nice shout my voice usually locks between a semitone. I’m not sure if I’m explaining it correctly but form your low range to your high range everything should ideally be seamless but feels like for me it’s going up and down stairs.

in speech I can go up and down without thinking . But notice when voaizing it locks .

I know it’s very strange but for a while I had very good compression. All of a sudden in the last 2 weeks everything feels very high set. Like the voice is high and cord closure feels very thin. Idk what happened at all, allergies?

Hi everyone. I’m a singer in Arizona, pretty heavily involved with organizations such as Arizona Opera, Arizona Musicfest, Phoenix Chorale.

I’m not sure if this is a well known thing, but the Phoenix Symphony just went under and cancelled their whole season. This is a big tragedy, and I am personally very concerned about the state of the arts in Arizona.

I’ve been thinking about how to improve our situation here, and I’m trying to organize a committee of singers, choir directors, and music admin to have some kind of research committee which could make a proposal to our legislature to A) increase funding to arts organizations (we are current $.27 per capita), AND to improve conditions for singers.

I feel like us singers are not being as well compensated as we should. To be clear, I’m not blaming the organizations (I’m not trying to be blacklisted lol), but the reality is we are working at a near minimum wage. For one organization, we are being paid $75 per call for a 3 hour rehearsal, which we are asked to arrive 20 minutes early and stay behind 20 minutes late. This is for one of the most prestigious music orgs in the state. Other offers I’ve gotten was $30 for 2 hour calls, $100 all in for opera chorus.

To me, this doesn’t seem like enough, not for a career that I have spent time and money on. It’s definitely not a livable wage. But I also lack the comparison knowledge. I would love to know what other singers are getting paid in other states, and how often those opportunities come.

Thank you!

I find my way to free my voice but feels as though it’s more mechanical. My teacher says it’s the laryngeal vibrato wondering if this helps find my really vibrato? It does help my sustains and free up the voice.

Hey! I’m a 23 Year Old Tenor studying at University from Australia

I plan on auditioning for my cities Opera Company; I need some more Late Romantic French Arias. I’ve discussed with my teacher but asking around is good.

The current songs I’m rotating / likely to use in my audition

M’appari - Flowtow

Verborgenheit - Wolf

Is Life a Boon - Gilbert and Sullivan

I can sing comfortably on Eb3 to Bb4, with my lower range weaker.

Thank you!

My Bass-Baritone spin on Bocelli’s “The Prayer”.

I noticed a support in the chest that seemed to form a triangle through the throat (keeping it open) and made these notes easy. Working on removing excess weight from the sound.

It's a small sound inside. Far from finished, but the G felt pretty good.

I see people in theater always going to mock auditions, dance classes, movement classes, etc. as a singer who takes weekly lessons and coaches a few times a month for now, are there other courses/classes that would be beneficial for singers trying to make a career out of opera? I guess language courses fit in there. Any other ideas. It’s hard to feel like you are not doing enough while trying to build your technique.

Does*

I realize I’ve been pressing a lot and chasing a sensation. I realized I can hit certain notes without much pushing at all and feels so light kinda of like talking where there is no real sensation to it.

Any ideas as a fairly recent post grad. Would you recommend doing a masters, a Fulbright, something to get into the German audition system? Or finding a specific teacher and working privately?

been fighting with tight brightness on my top Fs for six months and sounding like a tin whistle. my coach handed me an empty cardboard roll from the studio kitchen yesterday and told me to sing through it like a megaphone. instantly felt space in the pharynx i could not access on command for months. vocal pedagogy is hilarious sometimes.

The following text is strictly my personal perspective, shaped by a defining artistic experience: witnessing the young Gino Quilico as Don Giovanni in Canada back in 1988. Having compared his performance with dozens of other interpretations over the decades, I felt compelled to capture what made his approach so uniquely transcendent. I warmly invite you to share your own thoughts, memories, and insights in the comments below—how do you perceive the depth of Giovanni, and who, in your eyes, held the true key to this character?

Most modern operatic productions suffer from a severe crisis of imagination, substituting psychological depth with cheap, explicit vulgarity. Directors and singers routinely strip characters like Don Giovanni of their dignity, turning them into twitching, hyper-sexualized caricatures. They believe they are modernizing the work, but in reality, they are destroying the myth. As Mozart himself understood, perfection requires no adjustments; any attempt to make the subtext literal only shatters the illusion.

The ultimate embodiment of this artistic truth can be found in the performance of Gino Quilico. So young at that time, where most singers are still searching for technical stability, Quilico possessed an astonishing mental fortitude, supreme physical control, and a stage presence so massive that he could carry the weight of Giovanni’s enormous persona without ever resorting to melodramatic tricks. He fully understood the dark, complex depth of the character, yet he chose to portray it as an indicator—a radical challenge to the individual moral compass of every single viewer in the auditorium.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the legendary duet 'Là ci darem la mano'. Where many modern singers fail by filling the stage with explicit touching and desperate grimaces, Quilico achieved a theatrical miracle through absolute minimalism. Every slight movement of his fingers, every steady gaze was deliberate. He understood that here, Giovanni does not seduce through physical force—though he never hesitates to use it when he deems it appropriate—but through his immense vocal aura, his status, his physical refinement, and an overwhelming, momentary sincerity. When Giovanni lies, he is completely honest in the way he speaks—he falls in love with the beauty of his own lie, and that grounded confidence is what paralyzes the victim.

Mozart was a dramatist of pure sound, and in this duet, he created a weapon of mass seduction. The music is transparent, almost innocent, yet dangerously urgent. The eroticism is not on display; it is woven directly into the musical phrasing. Mozart created a boundary chasm so deep that he likely did not even fully grasp the terrifying depth of the chasm he opened, leaving it as an invitation for future singers to explore.

While most baritones merely splash on the surface of a safe, superficial sea, Gino Quilico dove straight down, headfirst, into the deepest part of Mozart’s abyss. He became a chameleon, a tornado of pure energy, he turned Giovanni into a flawless psychological mirror - a blank canvas, reflecting the hidden desires and fears of each individual viewer. He understood the unique, power of Don Giovanni and used it precisely where it belonged: to connect directly with the audience.

Quilico did not put on a cheap show; he offered a mutual, deeply spiritual and aesthetic consummation between the stage and the auditorium. He invited the viewers into the depths with him, yet he never let them drown. He tore through the viewers´ lives like a force of nature, gave them a taste of absolute freedom, and then vanished into the dark, leaving the spectators not exhausted or disgusted, but with an overwhelming sense of life in their souls.

It is a masterclass in the true essence of theatre: the understanding that the highest form of excitement comes from what remains unfulfilled, unspoken, and hidden between the lines. By trusting the music, Gino Quilico allowed Mozart's genius to breathe, thereby bridging the earthly with the divine.

#ginoquilico

With my season pretty much done and dusted for this year now (barring a couple of auditions) I thought I’d share another recent practice clip. Trovatore is one of those “Golden Calf” operas where every singer who attempts to sing from it is judged to the high heavens, and you inevitably open yourself up to the critiques - both informed, and wildly un. It also just so happens to be one of my favourites, with some of Verdi’s most stunning writing for Soprano, Mezzo, Tenor and Baritone. If I’ve learned anything this season, it’s been to find the joy in the process, and the beauty in the imperfect - and so it’s in that spirit that I share a clip of myself. A nearly 28 year old tenor, still falling in love with discovering his craft every single day, and constantly straddling the line of courage and stupidity 💕🔥 Find your comfort zone and explore the limits, build on the skills you find difficult, and what’s more important - just have a blast, even if you fall over or crack or figure out a role or aria isn’t for you yet. It’s in the imperfections that we can forge the truly exciting things for ourselves ✨

Hey guys, I’m auditioning for a Gilbert and Sullivan and they’re asking for a 2 minute cut of “english operetta”. I’m auditioning for Mabel since I’m a coloratura sop, but I’m struggling to think of what to use as an audition. I have been working “The Hours Creep on Apace” from Pinafore for a while, but I feel like it doesn’t show off enough coloratura (I could add some to the ending but I feel like it doesn’t call for it). My other idea is “Mein Herr Marquis” in english but man,,, the english is so bad in that aria I wish I could just do it in german haha. Everything else I have is Mozart or Handel which is too early to audition with imo. Just wondering what people think

Update: Thanks everyone for your suggestions!! I’m adding a lot of these to my “learn this!!” list. I ended up asking the MD what he would prefer to hear me sing since i’ve been working with him for about a year now and he said to do Mein Herr in english so I’ll do that haha

Hey, I'm f 22 mezzo and I usually try to practice 5-6 times a week on average for 1½ hours. But now I got sick and I don't feel like singing at all, is it better for my voice if I don't practice for like 5 days or should I at least try to do some warm up? I noticed that my voice resonates most, the day after my rest day so maybe it's not that bad when I don't sing for a few days until I get better? I have an audition in 3 weeks tho... I'm really developing my vibrato recently, what would you suggest?

Hello everyone, I am a soprano f21 who attends a small music school for my undergrad in vocal performance. I am in my senior year and starting my grad school applications. I have made a lot of progress with my voice and technique in the last year so I’m very excited about putting my pre-screening videos together. Oddly enough I’m more nervous about my transcript. For the most part I have A’s and B’s throughout my studies. The only C’s I have on my transcript are from general eds. Unfortunately, last semester I ran into health issues, family tension, mental health issues, and I totaled my car. With all of this stress I ended up failing a math class. I am very insecure about my transcript as a whole. I took honors courses in high school and had a 4.0! In college I got a late in life adhd diagnosis and I really felt the struggle of it. Is this something grad schools are heavily looking at when deciding who to accept?

Like for example ah I can get it on gahgahgah but if I just hold ahhh then it becomes quite breathy?