Six years of voice lessons over the course of my graduate studies did not lead me to master vocal technique. They did not even lead to very significant improvement.
For the most part, my teachers offered me tweaks, tactics and compensations rather than a comprehensive technique. They were so unaware of my actual technical issues that the fact that I was manufacturing my vibrato by pulsing my abdominal muscles went completely unnoticed until my final doctoral jury, when a member of the voice faculty who was not my own teacher pointed it out in his comments.
Because the teachers I worked with had trained some highly successful singers and many of their students did show improvement, those of us who weren’t improving concluded that we had only ourselves to blame. But it is now clear to me that these teachers lacked a complete grasp of technique. Each taught some skills brilliantly, some poorly, and others not at all. If you happened to need what they happened to do well, you would improve. Otherwise, you were out of luck. The teachers themselves were blind to the deficiencies in their own methods and would assume a lack of aptitude or discipline on your part, rather than assist you in finding a teacher who would meet the needs that they could not.
By the time I decided to become a voice teacher myself, I was fortunate to have found some excellent role models. I resolved to provide as comprehensive an approach as I could. I promised myself that should a student of mine fail to improve I would do my utmost to help them find the resources they needed even if it meant leaving my studio. But while this is certainly an improvement over the luck-of-the-draw model I experienced in grad school, I feel that there is more we can do to improve and accelerate vocal education.
Grad school tuition is expensive. Private voice lessons are costly. One-on-one time with a skilled professional in any field is a big-ticket item. I remember learning that some NYC voice teachers charge between $200 and $300 for a one-hour lesson and thinking, “what on earth could they possibly be teaching that would be worth that much money on an ongoing basis?!”
That led me to ask the question, how can I make sure my students receive the greatest possible value in return for their money and time?
I have long found the standard model of the weekly one-hour voice lesson frustrating. It doesn’t facilitate the opportunity to share a comprehensive overview of technique. The student shows up, you work on the things that seem most important, and the only expectation is that each time they get “one hour better,” as a colleague of mine put it. This then adds up to “four years better” for undergrad, or “two years better” for an MM, usually approaching things piecemeal, with no guarantee that “two years better” will lead to “professionally viable.”
Given that the skills that comprise vocal technique are quantifiable and teachable, I believe that there has to be a better approach – a structure that would enable us to progressively impart all of the concepts and skills a student needs as well as a means of cultivating each and integrating them with one another.
Such an approach should augment rather than supplant the one-on-one lesson model. While there is no replacement for individual instruction with a skilled, experienced teacher, there are categories of information that are better delivered via other modalities. These modalities can include online instructional course modules, assigned reading, and studio classes. With a combination of these modalities, a teacher can chart a course to mastery that could potentially take six months rather than six years, assuming a strong commitment on the part of the student.
Charting such a course requires an appreciation for what is best accomplished in the context of private lessons and what would be better (and more affordably) accomplished some other way. Here is how I have been reflecting on this and allowing these ideas to inform the way I structure my teaching (still very much a work in progress).
What my students need from me that is best accomplished in the studio:
- They need my ear. I can listen to them perform exercises and repertoire and discern the quality of their vocal production, consistency and clarity.
- They need my skill set. I can observe their coordination and help them make adjustments to improve their technique and promote greater ease and expressivity.
- They need my perspective. I can help them understand where they are now in relation to their short- and long-term artistic and professional goals. I have seen countless singers triumph over the challenges they’re facing, so I know they can do it, too.
- They need an example. I can model good singing for them and demonstrate what they could be doing better.
- They need my empathy and encouragement. I can hang in there with them when things become confusing or frustrating. I can affirm and support their personal desires for their singing when outside pressures threaten to drown them out.
What my students need that is best accomplished elsewhere, with examples of the resources I contribute:
- A working concept of what technique is – all of the various components and how they relate to one another. I’ve devoted a chapter to this in my forthcoming book. I’m also building an online Vocal Fundamentals course that aims to do this; it is built around 24 instructional videos that are 10-15 minutes in length, which means that it would require about 5 hours of highly succinct blathering to get all of this across to a student! Much more effective to lay it out in manageable chunks they can review whenever they wish.
- The means to habituate and reinforce new skills in between lessons. I am finding video tutorials to be extraordinarily useful for this purpose. When a student grasps an important skill for the first time, e.g. modulating their registration seamlessly or creating balanced breath support, they may not know exactly what it is that they did or how they did it. If I provide a video or an article that goes into greater detail about the topic than there is time to cover in a lesson, along with some related exercises, they will be able to build momentum in between lessons rather than risk the possibility of backsliding. They’ll probably need much less valuable lesson time devoted to the same subject when they return. I’m gradually building a library of these videos and posting them to my YouTube channel; I’ve also started creating in-depth online courses for individual topics, such as this one on articulation.
- The opportunity to deepen their practical understanding of fundamental skills. Reading about a topic helps with conceptual understanding, but practical application is what matters most. I’ve begun offering studio classes focusing on various aspects of technique and performance. This provides the opportunity to share material with my entire studio rather than spend valuable time on it in individual lessons; my students can then observe one another working on the same issue, and seeing someone else tackle a given challenge can really help catalyze one’s progress.
It’s so important to approach vocal instruction with the intent to pursue mastery and the means to address technique in a comprehensive fashion rather than piecemeal. It’s also vital that both teachers and students appreciate the value of one-on-one lesson time and to make the most of it. While singers will each progress at their own rate, a structured path to mastery is necessary to ensure that they make steady, measureable progress in the right direction.
Let’s all strive to create ways to do better than “one hour better!”
Comments