Advice for singing better

Career · singing competitions

If you’re entering an international competition

Carmen wrote this advice for those who want to enter a competition such as the Francesc Viñas without having sung opera in theatres yet.

• Bring your own pianist. The musical rapport you have built in rehearsal is what the jury perceives. With an unfamiliar pianist, that connection is lost.
• Prepare your body. A movement coach will help you move with ease: a clumsy gesture can spoil a performance.
• Stage every aria. With a theatre professional, perform as if you were inside the opera. The same goes for lieder.
• Look after your vocal technique. It is the foundation of everything: breathing, dropping the jaw, moving the lip corners and placing the sound on the vomer.
• Show stamina. Sing without showing fatigue, as if you could keep going: the jury is looking for someone who can sustain a whole opera.

Your door is there; you just have to know which one it is and open it.

And a reminder: a singer’s life is not reduced to one competition. If you don’t win, keep singing and training. If you win, keep studying to maintain and improve your level.

Repertoire · concert arias

Five Mozart concert arias for soprano

In 2012 Carmen shared on her blog a selection of Mozart concert arias, in piano reduction, for sopranos who wanted to broaden their repertoire beyond opera.

• “Ch’io mi scordi di te?” · K. 505
• “Misera, dove son!” · K. 369
• “Per pietà, non ricercate” · K. 420
• “Ma, che vi fece, o stelle” · K. 368
• “Non più. Tutto ascoltai” · K. 490
• “Popoli di Tessaglia!” · K. 316, in a piano reduction by John Verrall

A concert aria demands the same commitment as an opera scene, but without sets or costumes to help: all the expression rests on the voice and the text. It is good ground for applying technique to the intervals of the piece, as the method proposes.

If you’d like to work on one of them, mention it to Carmen in your lesson and she’ll prepare the most demanding passages with you.

Career · auditions and competitions

Losing is winning too

Alongside a list of US theatres holding auditions and international competitions for classical singers, Carmen left this reflection on her blog for those preparing to take part.

The most important thing is to enjoy the art of singing with naturalness and simplicity, to live the moment and to remember that we are only human.

Our place is not always the one we insist on being in. Sometimes, by losing, we win: we keep searching and find our true place. That is where we feel fulfilled and well, and that is what counts.

Before an audition, calmly check each call’s requirements (dates, age limit and required repertoire) and prepare that repertoire in good time, with your technique well established.

Choirs · published in ArtsEduca no. 4 (2013)

Preparing my choir for a festival

Singing in a choir develops the harmonic ear: holding your own melody while hearing the others without losing pitch. For Carmen, that learning carries over into daily life as a better way of communicating with others.

The conductor’s role

Conducting is decisive. The conductor must keep their training up to date, vocalise the choir before singing, correct vocal technique (ideally first individually and then as a group) and choose pieces suited to the choir’s current level. A good selection guarantees learning, good concerts and the motivation to keep growing.

What the choir needs

• Punctuality, responsibility and a sense of commitment.
• A good melodic and harmonic sense.
• Some music reading, if possible.
• Group awareness: each section sings as if it were a single voice.

Convey to the group how important it is to enjoy what it does and offers the audience.

When the choir reaches its best level, the conductor’s challenge is to keep things simple, avoid group pride and favouritism, and support the group when a concert doesn’t go as hoped. Only then is it ready for a national or international festival.

Choirs · from the jury table, Kraków 2012

The key to winning a choral festival

After serving on the jury of the III International Krakow Choir Festival, Carmen summed up on her blog what separates the winning choirs from the rest. That year, she said, the musical quality of the choirs made the decision especially hard.

Good vocal technique

Every member of the choir should be trained with the same technique and vocal quality required of a soloist at a conservatoire. Technique gives security when producing the sound and, with it, quality and confidence when performing.

Vocalise before singing? Yes, of course!

The conductor’s skill

The other piece is the conductor: their ability to get the most out of the choir and, above all, to choose repertoire suited to the group’s level.

Poland also taught her a human lesson: the natural, respectful and simple treatment she received there reminded her of the humility of the people of her native Cumaná.

Science · talk with Dr Jesús Mezones (2017)

Music: listening, feeling

“I am Music, who with sweet accents can calm every troubled heart.” — Monteverdi, L’Orfeo

What happens in the brain when we like a melody? In this shared talk, Carmen combined her perspective as a biomedical scientist and as a singer to explain it.

The pleasure we feel depends on a group of neurons called the nucleus accumbens, present in each hemisphere of the brain. When dopamine is released and its receptors are activated, we fully enjoy what we hear and feel everything from the subtlest emotions to the most electrifying.

Reflections · the first text on her blog, 2007

Born with a key signature

“I’m from Cumaná, I love to sing that pure, tasty rhythm…” This is how Carmen began her blog in 2007, with a text about vocation written in the language of the score.

We all love to sing as children, but for singing or choral conducting to become a reality in adult life is another story. Like every story, it has chapters, each with its own rhythm and tempo. We must fill the spaces and lines of the stave of our life with musical training: we have to learn.

But that story also needs its key signature, and we are born with it. How do we know whether we have it? By observing ourselves honestly. When it is there, it is humble, simple and grateful: it expects neither fame nor success. It simply gathers the notes life gives it, semibreves, minims and crotchets, like a happy girl who keeps them in her notebook and turns them into her most treasured notes.

We are born with an inner key signature!

Over time the bars multiply, an inner melody begins to sound, and life, with its modulations, appoggiaturas and changes of rhythm, turns it into a symphony, a sonata, a cantata or a poem.