Resource Library

General Resources

The resources below are ones I’ve found use­ful with var­i­ous stu­dents across the years.  Note that while I’ve curat­ed this list, I’m not respon­si­ble for the con­tents of mate­ri­als main­tained out­side of this site.  If you have any con­cerns about items you find here—or sug­ges­tions for oth­er mate­ri­als you think my stu­dents would find useful—I very much appre­ci­ate your shar­ing them with me!

Click a title to jump direct­ly to a par­tic­u­lar sec­tion, or click here to jump to your pri­vate stu­dent resources.

Audio Manip­u­la­tion & Visu­al­iza­tion

Audi­tion­ing

Fun Stuff

 Inse­cu­ri­ty & Imposter Syn­drome

IPA (Inter­na­tion­al Pho­net­ic Alpha­bet)

Metronomes, etc.

Mix Voice

Music Geek Trea­sure Trove

Tan­gents

Train­ers, Games, Quizzes, & Drills

Twang

Vocal Exer­cis­es

Vocal Health

Audio Manipulation & Visualization
Spectroid

Spec­troid is an Android app that shows you a real-time spec­tro­gram of the fre­quen­cies and har­mon­ics in your voice (or any sound).
SpectrumView

A spec­tro­gram visu­al­iz­er for iOS.
Transpose

An exten­sion for Google Chrome that allows you to trans­pose, tune, change play­back speed, and loop audio for YouTube and oth­er online videos
VocalRemover

Allows you to cre­ate karaoke or vocal-only ver­sions of MP3 record­ings, among oth­er use­ful func­tions.

Auditioning
Auditioning for College Musical Theatre Programs

A record­ed webi­nar with Matt Edwards and Hol­ly John­son.
Backstage magazine acting monologue search engine

Look­ing for a mono­logue for an audi­tion?  Here’s a handy resource.
Observations from the 2023–24 MT Audition Season

A blog post from Matt Edwards, Musi­cal The­atre spe­cial­ist at Shenan­doah Con­ser­va­to­ry
What NOT to do in an audition

A (humor­ous! tongue-in-cheek!) look at some of the worst mis­takes audi­tion teams see

Fun Stuff

Need a break from doom-scrolling?  Gotcha cov­ered.
Chrome Music Lab

A bunch of very cool games that let you blow off steam while mak­ing music (and maybe even solid­i­fy­ing some impor­tant musi­cal con­cepts while you’re at it!)

Insecurity & Imposter Syndrome
Broadway Singers Off & On Mic

Matt Edwards has com­piled a series of com­par­isons between what singers sound like in rehearsal, and what they sound like after the stu­dio pro­duc­ers have worked their mag­ic.
The Singer’s Guide to Finding Your Style & Artistic Voice

This book/eBook by Jess Bald­win is a life­line for any­one who’s strug­gling to fig­ure out who they are in a world of artists.
Why do we hate the sound of our own voices?

Do you hate lis­ten­ing to record­ings of your own voice?  You can thank both phys­i­ol­o­gy and psy­chol­o­gy, accord­ing to this Big Think arti­cle.
Why You Hate Your Recorded Voice

Andrew Barr has some sug­ges­tions on how to learn to love your record­ed voice.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet)
Forvo

Run into a word in a song you’re not quite sure how to pro­nounce?  Look it up here!
IPA Chart with Sounds

David gave you a lyric sheet with a bunch of fun­ny-look­ing squig­gles on it, did­n’t he?  This chart will help you turn squig­gles in to song!
IPA Source

What?  David did­n’t give you a lyric sheet with a bunch of fun­ny-look­ing squig­gles on it?  Good news!  You can down­load your own lyric sheets with fun­ny-look­ing squig­gles!
The Language Sounds That Could Exist, But Don’t

Tom Scott explores the blocks on the IPA chart that no human in his­to­ry seems to have want­ed to use in actu­al speech.

Metronomes, etc.
Drum Genius

Lots more fun than a stan­dard metronome, this app (for Android or iOS) lets you select a “groove” to play along with.
8Notes Free Online Metronome

Don’t want to install an app?  Here’s an online metronome with decent func­tion­al­i­ty you can access through any web brows­er.
iReal Pro

If you’re a jazz singer, you need to be acquaint­ed with iRe­al Pro—downloadable accom­pa­ni­ment tracks for just about any song you could name, with the abil­i­ty to trans­pose, change instru­men­ta­tion, change tem­po, etc.
Tempo

My go-to metronome app (for Android or iOS), Tem­po lets you set accent pat­terns, save playlists, and a bunch of use­ful oth­er fea­tures.

Music Geek Treasure Trove
C Major Is Actually the Hardest Scale

Newish music stu­dents often voice a wish that every­thing could be in C Major.  Charles Cor­nell dis­agrees.  Strong­ly.
The C Major Chord is Literally Out of Tune

…and it’s not your piano.  The laws of physics are con­spir­ing against us when we try to make music “in tune.”
Is C♭ the Same Note As B♮?

Yes!  But also, no.
Music Theory and White Supremacy

Turns out we’ve been describ­ing, ana­lyz­ing, and eval­u­at­ing music through some pret­ty nar­row lens­es.
Notation Must Die: The Battle for How We Read Music

Oh, and we’ve been pret­ty short-sight­ed about the way we doc­u­ment music, too.
Should Sheet Music Be Required for Music School?

Is the abil­i­ty to read the cod­ed nota­tions of an 11th-cen­tu­ry Ital­ian monk real­ly cru­cial for 21st-cen­tu­ry musi­cians?
This BPM Is Trash, And Here’s Why

In music as in all things, just because you can do some­thing does­n’t mean you should do some­thing.
Why You Don’t Want Perfect Pitch

No mat­ter how much you think you might.

Tangents
AI Is Ruining the Internet

Drew Good­en takes a humor­ous look at the amaz­ing “progress” of gen­er­a­tive AI.
How Much YouTube Paid Me for 4,700,000 Views

Con­sid­er­ing a career as a YouTube “Con­tent Cre­ator”?  Be sure you’ve thought it through.
MusicMap

An inter­ac­tive explo­ration of the geneaol­o­gy and his­to­ry of pop­u­lar music gen­res.
Olympic Gymnasts across the Years

We’ve learned a lot about the way the human body func­tions over the last sev­er­al decades.
Sound Affinities

Jess Bald­win dis­cuss­es qual­i­ties of vocal pro­duc­tion that tend to hang out togeth­er.
The Spotify Vampires Are Killing Music

Mary Spender has a few thoughts about Spo­ti­fy.
The Surprising Reason Why British People Sing in American Accents

Dave Huxtable has noticed that Adele does­n’t sing the way she talks.….

Trainers, Games, Quizzes, & Drills
Complete Music Trainer

The Com­plete Music Train­er is an online suite of three appli­ca­tions: Com­plete Ear Train­er, Com­plete Music Read­ing Train­er, and Com­plete Rhythm Train­er, each of which is also avail­able as an Android/iOS app.
MusicTheory.net

Lots of great free online con­tent for learn­ing about music the­o­ry, plus pre­mi­um apps.
Muted.io

A “mag­i­cal col­lec­tion of inter­ac­tive music the­o­ry tools & visu­al ref­er­ences to learn music online for freee.”  Also has a desk­top app.
Perfect Ear

Among many oth­er use­ful tools, Per­fect Ear has a “Uni­son Singing” exer­cise that I find won­der­ful­ly use­ful in prac­tic­ing pitch-match­ing.
Sight Singing Pro

A nifty lit­tle Android app to help you prac­tice singing melodies by sight.  Also avail­able for iOS.
Test If You Can Sing in Tune

The Singing Car­rots web­site has a handy tester to eval­u­ate how well in tune you can sing.  Head­phones strong­ly rec­om­mend­ed.
Tone Deaf Test

Think you’re “tone deaf”?  Very few peo­ple actu­al­ly are.

Vocal Exercises
Blowfish

The Naked Vocal­ist wrote about the exer­cise known as “blow­fish,” and pro­vid­ed a handy video demon­stra­tion.
Lip Trills

Lip trills can be tricky at first, but SingGeek has guid­ance on how to take advan­tage of this super help­ful exer­cise.
Straw Phonation

SingWise explains the ben­e­fits of straw phona­tion and offers some fun “mods” for the tech­nique.

Vocal Health

Oblig­a­tory caveat: I am not a doc­tor.  The fact that some­one said some­thing on YouTube doesn’t mean their words should over­ride the advice of your per­son­al physi­cian or med­ical provider.  Con­sume con­tent (and heed its advice) respon­si­bly!
How do you sing when your voice is sick?

Jean­nie Gag­né of Berklee School of Music offers advice and tech­niques to help under-the-weath­er singers.
How to Sing Healthy

Evyn­ne’s advice on keep­ing your voice healthy, no mat­ter how you’re called upon to use it.
Measuring the Vocal Athleticism of Broadway Stars

An NYU arti­cle describ­ing new research using a “vocal Fit­bit” on the vocal demands of musi­cal the­atre roles and vocal health.
Will Ramos Laryngoscopy

Ever won­der what the voice box looks like when a singer is gen­er­at­ing harsh vocal effects?  Won­der no more!
Singers in the MRI

This fas­ci­nat­ing playlist of videos gives us a cross-sec­tion of what’s going on inside as singers make var­i­ous sounds.
VocalMist Nebulizer

I’m not a neb­u­liz­er user myself, but many col­leagues have rec­om­mend­ed this brand for folx inter­est­ed in such things.

Private Student Resources

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