Thursday, December 26, 2013

Singers: Is it your teacher’s fault?





Those who know me, know well that one of my big and continuing concerns is the multitude of un-qualified and under-qualified, singing teachers and singers who teach voice for the wrong reasons and do a lot of harm to aspiring singers. There is, however, the flip side of the coin. When is a lack of progress/improvement/ success in singing the responsibility of the singer/student?

Case Study# 1 Recently I had a conversation with a classical singer, with whom I worked very briefly long ago when I was a student teacher.  When we spoke she talked about all of her various singing teachers over the years and outlined their problems.  These were all teachers who helped a multitude of other students learn how to sing well, but nevertheless, she related that learning from each of the various teachers did not work for her. 

I had attended one of this particular singer’s performances in the 1990s when she was working with an excellent teacher in New York City and I recollect that she had made great improvements in her tone and various aspects of her technique. I remember thinking that the teacher with whom she was working at the time helped her a lot.  I asked the singer why she left that teacher and she told me that she had attended several grad school auditions and that she kept getting comments that she was “under pitch”.   Now, having personally taught this voice, although very briefly, before leaving the area to attend grad school myself, I was very familiar with the fact that she previously sang quite flat as well as the exact cause of the intonation problem. Along with other technique difficulties, she was singing heavily and did not have enough head voice in the upper middle as well as lacked an “open throat” therefore notes in the upper middle and in seconda passaggio were consistently flat. In laymen's terms she was singing to heavily in the upper part of her voice and it was weighing the pitch down.

The teacher in New York had lessened her nasality problem, got her air moving and also help get some good support going in her body.  He also had her singing much less flat, although the problem was not entirely eliminated. Yet when this singer received comments about the fact that she was singing flat, she blamed the teacher that had helped her so much!

She didn’t think for a moment that it was HER responsibility to sing in tune! She didn’t bother to ask others whether she had previously had that problem! She received some comments and BANG! Fired her teacher!  She went on to study with a string of teachers ‘who didn’t work for her’ and, without self-examination, blamed her career difficulties squarely on their shoulders.

Case Study #2 An aspiring musical theater actress came to me because she felt that study with her present teacher was not working, because she was not getting hired!  It did not enter her mind that the teacher she was leaving was teaching half of Broadway (ok a slight exaggeration).  The fact that she was not getting hired for “straight”  non-musical productions as well, which had nothing to do with her voice training,  did not enter her consciousness when she was analyzing her lack of success. She was paying BIG money to the teacher and she was not getting the parts she wanted.  From my perspective, with the negativity she brought into the room, I could never imagine anyone hiring her, in fact, I made sure that our schedules did not match in order to avoid being her next teacher and suffering the bad word of mouth that eventually would ensue because she might continue to be frustrated with her career progress and  need a new scapegoat.

Case Study #3  An extremely talented and very successful teen-aged legit musical theater singer, with whom I worked a few years ago in London, attended a pop singing contest. The judges told the singer publically that “her musical theater training was working against her.  As her teacher, and knowing full well, how important being able to function in contemporary styles is these days to employability in musical theater,  and being able to both sing and teach these styles, I many times assigned repertoire and attempted to coach her in the principles of pop-styling. This young singer, however, was entirely disinterested in the subject, never did the assigned practice and so my thought was, she knows who she is and wants to specialize in what she does best and most naturally and I won’t push the issue. Then on a whim she attends a pop singing contest and the judges, do guess what? Blame her teacher.

On an even more serious note, when students come to me for an initial consultation and I suspect nodules or some other possible pathology, I always send them to an ENT, not only for their own good both medically and because it will inform how to proceed in lessons, but because I don’t want to be blamed for the condition of someone’s voice before they came to me for lessons
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What can singing teachers do?

If you give an initial consultation as I do, or if not, during the first lesson, take notes on your evaluation of the singer and share those notes with the singer, verbally or in terms of a report. It is up to you how much detail you present in that initial consult, and how your present the information, because you want to always be encouraging, if at all possible, and you don’t know how rapidly a singer will progress. You should, however, fully share the information with the singing student during their course of study as well as bring to their attention areas they are not addressing in their practice and what the consequences might be. Of course, if you see student after student coming to you from another teacher with a similar set of problems, you can form a  (private) negative opinion of another instructor, but do not be quick to blame the former instructor (if any) for problems based on one singer. You do not know how the singer sounded before the other teacher worked with them! You would want your student’s future teachers to offer the same level of fairness to you!

Make sure you ask a singer, when you first meet him or her, exactly what their goals are and make sure that you feel that you can help that student reach those goals.  If a student with no previous training comes to you two months before an audition for a top conservatory to prepare the audition, you must be up front that there is not the proper time to prepare this audition. You can still take the student and do the best you can given the fact that goal is unrealistic. In many cases the student can and will attempt the audition the next year and be successful.
If a parent brings you a child with the stated goals of winning auditions but only want to the child to have a half hour lesson every other week  when the child has many areas that need to be addressed, don’t set yoursel and more importantly the child,  up for failure by agreeing to help achieve the goal on insufficient instruction time
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What can Singers do?


After you have carefully selected your teacher based on qualifications, experience, word of mouth, how they themselves sing, and the way their other students sound, be honest with yourself. Are you putting 110% effort into becoming a good singer? Are your goals realistic based on your present level of ability? Are you putting enough effort into getting your career going? Simply paying a teacher and attending lessons does not guarantee you will get the results you desire, be they becoming a better singer or becoming a big star.  A teacher can only give you , accurate information, appropriate feedback and
guidance ;  A good voice  teacher can make or break whether or not you learn how to sing, but you need way more than that to have a career. As far as getting cast in roles and working is mostly about what YOU bring to the equation.  That is a truth that is sometimes hard to face, but once you do face this, you will  greatly increase your chances of reaching your goals.



Saturday, December 21, 2013

Should YOU become a Singing Teacher?

Should YOU become a Singing Teacher?



I have been approached for advice, from time to time, by fellow singers who are considering doing some teaching. Sometimes it comes in the form of a panicked request for “materials” before a job interview for a teaching position. Other times it is a singer bouncing ideas off of me about whether or not teaching singing is right for them and whether, in my opinion, they have something marketable to offer. Sadly, sometimes it is a singer who has not been serious in their own training, as well as  unsuccessful in obtaining paying work as a performer due to a deficit in skills, who considers becoming a singing teacher. Often they have little actual interest in teaching,  but needing to get some work to keep them afloat until they get the paying performing work, they decide to become teachers. I have therefore organized a few points about teaching the art of singing, which I hope will be helpful to potential singing teachers and their potential students.

1)    Most importantly, you must first be a skilled singer in order to teach the art of singing. There is an old saying, very insulting to teachers, that goes something like ”Those who can, Do, those who CAN’T.... teach”. Well, as far as singing goes, you absolutely have to be able to do it (or have been able to sing in the past if you are advanced in years) in order to teach it. Period. Full stop! Now, you may be an excellent, experienced and skilled performer who does not wish to or is unable to engage in having a singing career and still be an excellent teacher. Several esteemed teachers I know of are such individuals, they missed the boat of a performing career for themselves because of family obligations, health problems or having initially received poor training and then found themselves to old to establish a performing career, but they do possess the technique they are teaching. If you have tested the technique in the professional arena all the better.
 Occasionally, I have a call from an absolute beginner who wants to train to become a singing teacher. My advice is always to train to become a singer and if you do not have a burning desire to perform then you will have a head start to being a good singing teacher. I do not subscribe to the “Music Education philosophy, which trains "music teachers".  Music students are "musical souls", be they adults or children, and they respond to fluid, expressive, enthusiastic playing and singing from skilled performers. Mediocre "Music Ed" specialist teachers have, in my opinion done more to kill off enthusiasm from the public for serious music than the influence of the vapid commercially-promoted recordings with little"musical content" that are fed to  young listeners.

2)    Conversely, just because you can sing does not mean you can teach. Never the less, as discussed in 1) above, it is a very good start. There are many natural singers who have beautiful singing voices but do not understand exactly what they are doing to produce the sound or if they do understand they are unable to communicate it. You need to be able to do both. Sometimes singers understand how to make a nice sound with their own instrument but do not understand how different vocal instruments function or how to approach singers with different technical problems from their own. I am going to make a few high sopranos angry now, but I will say it anyhow. There are many sopranos, with high light voices that are able to make attractive sounds without learning how to sing properly. This is because it is possible for some tiny little soprano vocal mechanisms, to create what is an attractive sound to the public, when they are young, without the kind of breath support that most other types of voices absolutely must have in order to function. Often these singers have decent performing careers until their voices mature and they find they can no longer sing without retraining. It has been said by colleagues of the famous soprano who shall remain nameless, that she was an inverse breather. An inverse breather pulls up and in, instead of expanding the body with the air. A singer such as this may not understand how critical it is for other types of voices to breath correctly and then fail to address this issue with their students.(I often drive myself crazy trying to get some high light sopranos to breath correctly, but since they can get away with their bad habits some do not learn the most optimal way. I think even high light sopranos sound BEST when they breath properly like everyone else so I will never stop insisting that all singers breath well. Baritones generally get further than tenor simply on the strength of their beautiful natural voices whileknowing very little about technique. It should be remembered a singer cannot transfer his or her lovely voice to a student, only their knowledge.

3)    A singing teacher must understand how different personalities and voices function. Don’t think that all you need to do when teaching others is repeat exactly how your teacher worked with you. I adjust my teaching to each singer. If a singer is a hardworking perfectionist who is very hard on his or herself,  I have a very different attitude than I do with one who is a slacker. If a student has a hyper-phonation problem we do completely different vocalizes than if they have a hypo-phonation problem. Many singers who makefirst attempts at teaching voice, simple regurgitate what worked with them.  So how does one learn about other voices? In the normal course of a peforming career singers observe what works and does not work with other voices and voice types. As a student, it is important to sit in on other singer’s lessons and attend master classes in order to learn about other kinds of voices as well as taking classes in pedagogy. The easiest way to do this is in a University or conservatory music program. If you are a fine pianist you can volunteer to play for singing teachers and observe, observe, observe.

So, if you think you have something to offer, how do you get started? One excellent way to gain experience is to barter singing lessons in exchange for other services. Be upfront about your level of experience. I started teaching in my late teens. At that point I had two years at university under a good teacher, it was more than five years since my first paid gig and had already won several competitions and made a recital debut at Carnegie Hall, so I was not exactly green despite my age. I exchanged singing lessons for guitar lessons. It was a great deal, I was learning on my second instrument AND getting experience as a singing teacher. Soon I was getting results and references. So I started to charge a little, but I worked exclusively on technique and taught only other musicians who knew what they were doing otherwise. Then my teacher started referring high school age students to me and was kind enough to monitor my progress with them. Then she had me take some of her students while she was away. I think I did help even my first students but I was quite aware that I had so much more to learn. I had to start somewhere, and if you want to teach singing you must start somewhere too.

If you are just starting out and do not have knowledge that is broad or deep, only teach what you know best. If you are a natural singer but an experienced performer, why not be a performance coach and have a group workshop. You don’t have to mess with any technique. A performance coach can help singers with their style, dramatic interpretation and stage presence. Just make sure that the singers who work with you are getting technique instruction elsewhere if they need it. If you only feel totally confident with one style than only teach that style and be up front about it.

Finally, the voice studio should not be a graveyard for frustrated singers who are not making it, or never made it, passing on their technical deficiencies to those who don’t know any better, although it very often is. Teach for the right reasons: because you really want to help people and because you are honestly interested in the human voice.