Day 3 – more takeaways! (addt’l comments in purple italics)

July 3, 2022

• “Social Media and Building a Studio” presented by Phyllis Horridge et al
  Takeaways:

• • YouTube:
    • Reaction videos on YouTube (and TikTok) are very successful at getting you known
    • Editing is crucial
  • Instagram 
    • It’s where the kids are (and TikTok) – FB is dead [long live Facebook]
    • Carousels get much more traction than single photos; videos get the most
    • Lighting is the most important
  • TikTok
    • Controversial content is still content 
  • General
    • The longer you keep someone on your site, the more the platform sends people to see it
    • Showing up is the most important thing you can do 
    • Go live!
    • Check out Pinterest – it’s a great and underused way to get traffic to your sites
      One of these days I’ll have the guts to do TikTok – hoping for the New Year
      

• “Creating Crossover Curriculum” presented by Sarah Wigley, Nathan Gunn, Yvonne Gonzales Redman
  Takeaways
  • New program at University of Illinois – Champaign-Urbana offering a BMA in Lyric Music Theater – opera and musical theater
    • NASM-accredited program focusing on 
      • Flexibility
        • Performance and creative concentrations
        • Lyric Theater Studio – student led productions; students manager
          • Costume and set design
          • Sound production
          • Direction/Stage management
        • Collaborative teaching (“it’s like a teaching hospital”) [love this idea and this line]
          • Students work with teachers in different genres
          • Influenced by Norman Spivey/Mary Saunders Barton at Penn State
      • Creativity
        • New Works
        • Collaboration with other Arts majors
      • Wellness
        • Vocal Health
          This was not something that directly pertained to me, but I had heard about this program on Nicholas Perna’s VocalFri podcast, and I was curious about it. I was looking at it for a student of mine – who is no longer a student of mine. Oh well.

• Keynote Address – Craig Terry
  Takeaways:
  • Focus on interpretation – “help them to mean the words that they sing”
  • Use improvisation – think outside the box – accompanied a young woman on “Caro mio ben” and changed the style and harmonies of the accompaniment – and she went with it
  • “We have the authentic, honest opportunity to mean what we say”
  • “Remembering why you loved this music in the first place [when you walk on the stage] is all that matters” [bolding mine]
  • “We have all the tools; we have all the possibilities”
    Craig Terry is amazing. I am so impressed by him, and have been since he presented at the 2018 NATS Conference. Check him out here with Joyce DiDonato in an NPR Tiny Desk concert – outstanding way to bring old music to live with new instruments.
    
• “Navigating Standard and Contemporary Belt – A Vowel Guided Approach” presented by Lori L’italien and Kevin Wilson
  Takeaways:
  • Broke down anatomical differences between standard and mixed belt 
  • The Belting Pre-Requisite: Foundation BEFORE Aesthetics
  • Identifying the link between emotions and their effect on technical choices (where is a fearful breath versus one that comes out of contentment?)
  • “The tongue is like the Mafia – it’s connected to everything in your mouth.”
    Since a lot of my teaching involves finding where things live in your mouth and how to make that work in order to find the most efficient and stylistically correct production, this was very interesting to me. The jargon used seemed associated with Estill, and I’ve always been skeptical of Estill as being somewhat manipulative and complicated – but I’m willing to learn more about it. Also approaching things from a scale of 1-5 in terms of resonance, which I’ve done quite a bit of in my own work.

Next week I’ll cover the last three days of the conference (the final day was only the general meeting, so I’ll combine that with the day before). Stay tuned!