EDITOR’S NOTES

by Dawn! E. Robinson

 

Welcome to VocalMusician.com.  I really hope that what you find here will be informative, promotional and, above all useful.

 

The idea for this site has been in the back of my head for more years than I care to admit.  I thought it might be a print newsletter or magazine at first.  Eventually, as I came to learn about websites, it seemed more logical for it to take shape on the Internet.  I had also looked around for a publication on or off the Web that was a trade publication for singers and couldn’t find one.  I saw plenty of trade magazines and sites for instrumentalists, songwriters, and the general music industry.  The closest thing in print to what I was looking for was Opera News; the closest thing on the Web was ClassicalSinger.com.  But what I had in mind was a site that wasn’t genre-specific.  After all, I think good singing is good singing regardless of the genre. 

 

One reason I wanted to do this is because too often, I would run into some singer I knew a long time ago who had just done a show, opera or tour that I didn’t know about.  Also, too often, I’d run into singers I went to school with years ago who would ask me if I was still singing.  The hype machine is such that too many of us singers don’t know what other singers are doing and, therefore, we can’t be supportive of each other’s work.  The hype machine would have us believe that only those it deems hype-able are worthy of recognition and promotion, which leaves the rest of us – and we are many – out in the cold wasteland of obscurity.  So, on VocalMusician.com, we singers will get to hype ourselves, and each other.

 

So, what is VocalMusician.com exactly?  First of all, VocalMusician.com is NOT a fan site.  It is not my intention to add to the hype already given to the handful of famous and successful artists out there [she wrote while listening to Sheryl Crow’s C’mon C’mon CD for the thousandth time – tee hee].  So there will be NO gossip on this site - no discussion about who slept with whom to get the record deal; who got the gig because somebody owed their cousin a favor; whose vocals are really computer-generated; who can sing but needs to lose weight; who can’t sing and looks like they need to eat a meal with gravy on it or who’s fried out on one drug or other.  VocalMusician.com is about vocal musicians – singers and instrumentalists who sing – who appreciate and cultivate the art of good singing.

 

A friend of mine recently asked me what had happened to good music.  I told him that good music never went away.  The radio industry just made it more difficult to find.  And no, I’m not anti-radio – necessarily (tee hee).  I just don’t like people dictating to me what is worthy of airplay and what is not.  I want to hear who/what I want to hear.  And I don’t want some non-music-knowing radio personality (whose playlist is dictated to him, hello? by some non-music-knowing programmer) trying to convince me that some kid whining through their nose is a good singer when I know better.

 

I used to annoy people riding in my car because I was constantly punching the dial buttons on my car radio looking for ANYTHING worth listening to.  It was rough.  Eventually, I gave up and started recording tapes from my record collection to play in the car.  Also, on way too many occasions, I was put off by radio people clamoring to get local bands to play their after work parties – YET those same bands could never get airplay on their stations because they didn’t fit the dictated “format” of the station programmers.  I spit on format radio!  HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! 

 

I was born in December of 1964.  That means that when I first started listening to music, Top 20 or Top 40 meant a pretty eclectic mix of musical genres by both established artists and up and coming artists. TV variety shows like "The Ed Sullivan Show" still came on weekly where, in one hour, you could see an excerpt from a Broadway play, hear an aria by the latest star at the Met, and hear singers of various genres (and age groups) sing their latest hits.  But somewhere along the way, somebody came up with “formats” and decided that white people would only want to listen to this, black people would only want to hear that, kids (though they make no money) ruled the record market and older, established artists should be relegated only to Vegas, Atlantic City or Branson, Missouri instead of being held up as the standard for younger artists to aspire to.  So, unless you grew up in an environment where going to a Broadway play or an opera was the norm, you never knew what was happening on the stage.  Unless you watched PBS with your father (like I did) you might not know who Ella Fitzgerald, or Billie Holiday was. Unless you had a relative with an extensive record collection (like I did) you might never have heard some of the wonderful singers that have come and gone and who are (unfortunately) barely mentioned in today’s media or are quickly passed over in the (supposedly) definitive music documentaries that were broadcast in recent years.

 

Today, we also have Internet radio stations – bunches of them.  Some that are pre-programmed, some you can program yourself for a subscription fee.   I think that Internet radio is making great strides for artists who are totally independent.  But for those listeners still tuned only to traditional “format” radio, it will become increasingly difficult to find good music; and especially, good singers.

 

Anyway, what I hope VocalMusician.com does is give singers a place to promote their work and gain some information about other singers.  There will be interviews with singers and people who work with singers to give other singers a wider viewpoint.  I hope to attract advertising from music supply companies (that already cater to instrumentalists) so that we singers can also be up on the latest recording and performing equipment.   I hope that, in time, singers will be able to go to the Network page and find accompanists, songwriters, voice teachers/coaches, vocal therapists/otolaryngologists (ear-nose-throat surgeons), sound technicians, maybe even agents or managers.  I will also be featuring articles from singers about issues important to singers.

 

So, singers on the Web, unite!   Check out VocalMusician.com, promote your work here, see what other singers are up to, and then, let’s support each other and get a buzz going about good singers.  

Sing on…  D!

 

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