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!

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.

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.