The more professional you come off, the more of a good impression you will make as a singer and performer.  One thing you can do for yourself as a singer is to get yourself organized by creating a polished Repertoire Folder.

Top 10 tips when creating a singing repertoire folder.

1. Your Repertoire folder should be a nondescript plain three ring binder filled with the sheet music of your top songs for auditions and performances.  You can also include a CD with pre-recorded accompaniment if appropriate (say you sing to a rock band).

2. Have a table of contents listing your pieces and their composers.  You may also include song length for reference.

3. Have your sheet music put in front to back with the pages taped together so that the pianist can easily get through your songs with as little page turns as possible.   Some people go as far as to slide their music in plastic protective sheets, I actually do not recommend that because you risk having a glare on the music from whatever lights are provided for your piano.  Make sure your copies are fresh and well printed on a nice paper stock.

4.  Have tabs labeling and separating each piece for easy access.

5.  If appropriate, print the lyrics on a sole page and have that placed before each corresponding piece.  This is great for quick review when sitting at an audition.  Also, you can pull out just the lyric page to sing from for reference if your piece is not yet memorized leaving the sheet music free for the pianist.

6.  If your piece is in a foreign language, your lyric page should include three lines.

1. Lyrics

2. under the lyrics write the  I P A, or pronunciation of the foreign language  written out so you can     read it like english.  Example- Baccio in italian would be written Bach-oh, (break up the syllables as well for an easier read)

3. the actual English.- make sure that you write out the exact English word under the foreign text, not just English lyrics that may have been written to fit the piece.

7. Label the inside of the folder with your name and contact info if you leave it somewhere.  You do not want to put any labels or words on the outside of the folder.  If you are holding the folder when singing you don’t want people finding themselves straining to read what it may say and thus be distrated from your performance.

8. Have a few copies of your picture and resume in the pockets.

9. Make sure to have your top three songs that are ready to go placed first in your book.  These should be memorized and consist of a ballad, an uptempo , and a wild card selection.

10.  Finally, have this book on you at all times.  (Having two is not the worst idea.)  If there is one always in your car or music bag, there will never be an excuse to miss a singing opportunity.  -We never know when these singing they will find us and what they will bring us!

Sing well!

written by:

Ariella Vaccarino creator of Voice Lessons To GO (singing lessons on CD), and author of Vocalize!

www.voicelessonstogo.com