After furiously coding this summer I am very happy to hit the fall with my first seminar of the school year. Roosevelt University was very energized from my first conversations with them about coming in for a seminar and it really set up a great day yesterday.
I introduced the Velvet Singer method of career management to the Master’s students in the business of singing class. Because the seminar material dovetailed so well with the course curriculum, we were able to integrate the two together into a homework assignment due in two weeks.
I created five exercises which must be completed using the software and am very hopeful that the students will fly right through. Anyone that completes the assignment is guaranteed to have a basic proficiency in using Velvet Singer. If they decide in the long-term that the software approach is not for them, they will have at least learned one consistent approach.
The assignment is to enter data into Velvet Singer software in several modules and then email reports directly from the system. It will provide a whole host of information to their professor about how the singer approaches their career. I will be very interested as well to see how they organize their repertoire, how many professional contacts they can dig up, and what types of goals they set for themselves.
We began class by taking the self-management questionnaire which immediately shed light on the wide array of experience levels. It was a very interesting group of singers who were extremely willing to share with each other; it made for a very collegial atmosphere.
