Morning Coffee I - Memberships
Top 10 Paid Sites for Singers
Top 10 Paid Sites for Singers
There is a wonderful habit of getting a cup of coffee (or beverage of your choice) and scrolling through the latest news and updates in the singer world before getting started with your day. Since I love coffee, I call it my Morning Coffee time. It’s pretty simple. I have a list of bookmarks on my browser that I click down daily to make sure I don’t miss anything big happening in the field of singing. I look at all types of singing now – though I confess, I used to only look at the classical blogs, websites, and thought leaders. I hope you’ll put SantoshaVoiceGroup.com onto your Morning Coffee time list right at the top. Meanwhile, I’ll give you my favs in this several part series. If you find some that you love, please let us all know – I’m constantly updating this list. I hope you will too.
Today I’m reviewing and listing my Top 10 Paid Sites for Singers. (AKA: MEMBERSHIPS)
Top Memberships Sites
To get the latest singer news, you’ll have to fork out a little money. I’ll tell you the ones I pay for regularly and the ones I don’t. Even if I don’t subscribe, I still click on to see the headlines. Who knows, maybe I’ll pony up for it one of these days.
1. The New York Times Arts and Entertainment Section
This one is a must. Really everything in this country starts in New York. I live in LA but NYT is still best for me! I do pay for this one though I found a special that is only $4 per month. I do believe you would benefit from subscribing to your local online paper as well – just to see what is actually going on in your community. I do! (LA Times, Pasadena Star, Altadena Patch)
https://www.nytimes.com/section/arts/music
2. Musical America
I love the breadth of news one can get on this site. It’s not just classical, nor just about performers, but it has lots of business articles, competitions, workshops, presenters, managers, thought leaders, and even job listings. Totally worth the $150.00 annual membership. You can get a free 7-day trial to check it out.
https://www.musicalamerica.com/
3. Fractured Atlas
I highly recommend this group to help you make your musical and artistic dreams come true. This group gives you lots of practical resources, such as fundraising tools, support, and guidance that helps you take care of all the little details of events, projects, publishing, legal issues, insurance issues, etc. They have been in business for a long while and do stay current. Their site may be kind of confusing but well worth the struggle, I’m hoping – I’ll have to give you an update soon. I just resubscribed as an individual professional subscriber at $10.00 per month—but now cannot seem to be able to log in – argh! You can join this group and/or you can also join my Santosha Voice Community for about the same amount of money. I promise you’ll be able to log in to the membership community on my site – haha! Here’s the link:
https://www.fracturedatlas.org/
4. National Association of Teachers of Singing
I am a professional voice teacher and have been a member of NATS for many decades now. Their website does have lots of great info, including a ton of free resources like MP3s of vocal exercises, repertoire, courses. There are also paid courses on that site. There are different levels of membership but one of the best things you get is a directory of other teachers and voice professionals as well as access to the international and national conferences. If you teach at all, become a member. You won’t regret it.
5. Arts Journal
I do recommend the Arts Journal Music Tab. It has a wide range of topics in the news and stays current. You can get a lot of news by subscribing the newsletter and you can also subscribe either on the site or on Patreon. I do not subscribe yet but, who knows? Here’s the link:
6. Classical Singer
This is an online magazine that has so many wonderful resources for classical singers. By classical singer, we now also mean pop singers, musical theatre singers, and singer-songwriters. This journal does it all. I have an article published in that journal and I love the folks who run it. I highly recommend it for you. I am not a member right now but I do regularly judge the vocal competitions and go to the national conferences. Check them out!
7. Backstage
If you are currently auditioning or getting ready to audition for gigs for when Covid opens everything up again, this is the one to have. Like YAP Tracker, this site allows you to upload all your headshots, reels, resume, credits, other media and be scouted by industry professionals. They have everything you need to get yourself real paying jobs in the industry.
8. YAP Tracker
So, YAP stands for Young Artist Programs. This site keeps your recordings, resume, etc. so you can submit them to many Young Artist Programs and Vocal Competitions. This site is mainly for classical singers. If you are on that classical path – as I was for decades both as a singer and classical voice teacher – it is suggested to get into a few of these YAPs to network, get experience, and maybe even more training before auditioning for real opera jobs.
9. Opera America
If you are in the opera field, as I was for years, this is a great membership to have! It not only gives you news but also audition repertoire, lots of data on all the opera companies and their auditions. I just love it. I’ll probably re-subscribe again soon because I love opera and I teach lots of opera singers as well as music theatre and pop singers. An individual membership is $75 per year.
10. Opera News
This site really only covers the uber stars and a little bit of college. I don’t subscribe but they really do keep up to date on the big stars.
