New Students!

The following is part of a series of journal entries of my experiences and reflections using LearningMethods in my private voice teaching. The two students followed are “Emilie” age 14 and “Courtney” age 13. Both students began lessons with me September 18th 2018, and the journal entries continue until December 4th 2018. All lessons were audio-recorded for the purpose of these reflective journals.

In this journal, I share the way I typically go about my first lesson with a new student. This is also my first weekly journal reflecting on my experience working with students Emilie and Courtney.

Whenever I get a new student, I start of lessons by asking:

1. About themselves

2. What sort of genres they like to listen to

3. Why they signed up for singing lessons/what they are hoping from me

Most of my voice students thus far have been under 18 years old and often have a hard time with that last question. I ask those questions as a way to establish a collaborative relationship rather than an authoritative one. I also do this in hopes that it’ll ease any nerves they may have of meeting my “standards” for any music student. Once I’ve gotten to know them I’ll tell them about myself and say something along the lines of,

“I’m from London currently at Western University there for master’s in music education. I also went to Western for my undergrad where I studied voice, so I am classically trained in singing. The way that I teach is actually a little different than what I would say most music teachers do, in the sense that many voice teachers will give you tricks and skills to be a good singer, whereas I believe we as humans are already designed to be good singers, it’s just that we’ve got some stuff blocking us from accessing our skills and abilities. I’ll also always ask to hear your opinion before I ever give you mine because your opinion of yourself is important. Any questions so far? [No] Things will make more sense as we go along through lessons but feel free to let me know if you get confused at all.”

Emilie (age 14). Lesson 1.

Emilie seems to have a concrete set of beliefs about her abilities as a singer. She strongly labeled herself as an Alto singer (without being prompted in any way as to what her voice type is). When I asked her “how do you know you’re an Alto?” She said because her voice cracks earlier in higher notes than the Soprano voices she has sung with in choir.

Emilie used terms like “head voice” and “chest voice” and shared that she finds it difficult to listen to “pop stars” on the radio because she doesn’t sound like them. When I asked her if she considers it realistic to compare herself to people on the radio who have had many takes on a track and have some sort of digital support, she thought that was an interesting point to consider.

Emilie comes from a catholic school that specializes in traditional choral education (a background similar to my own upbringing) which might be the originator of her current beliefs and where she learned the language/terminology she uses. I found it difficult to say nothing while hearing Emilie label all of these beliefs. However, because it was our first lesson together I felt it was important to focus on listening in order for her to feel heard which will hopefully build a sense of trust. I believe if I interrupted her by projecting my philosophies onto her then she would feel fluffed.

Courtney (age 13). Lesson 2.

We did some warm-ups for the first time and I explained to her the purpose of the warm-ups as we did them. When I explained that “puppy dog noises” were a way to stretch the vocal folds, Courtney told me that she didn’t know the vocal anatomy, so I gave a brief lesson on vocal folds and how they lengthen and shorten based on pitch.

We worked on a pop song she chose, whenever I asked her about her experience after singing through a section she usually said “good” and then immediately went to critique areas she thought were unsuccessful. Whenever I asked her to speak about something that she thought went well, she usually only had one thing to mention and would say “the chorus was good” or something, and I would prompt her to explain what she meant by “good.”

Courtney seems to have a high awareness of vocal style and detail in singing. She knows what areas she wants to address and in what ways. I’m not sure if Courtney is aware of her skills because she speaks rather softly and has a lot of critical things to say about her singing. I wonder if it might be of use to take a minute for an informal mediation next week as a way to allow her to register whether or not any feelings of frustration showed up/ are with her.

OverallWhen starting a new student my main focus is building trust and letting them get to know me and my style of teaching. In order to be able to work on singing skills through the approach that I take requires a certain amount of vulnerability depending on the individual’s comfort level, and I need to create a safe space in order to teach the way I would like to. When I say things to my students like, “It’s ok with me if you don’t practice all the time. This time is for you and if you want to spend it practicing every day and really working on your skill that’s great, and if you just want to sing for 30 minutes every week then I’m cool with that too!” I often see varying reactions of confusion and preservation, as if they don’t believe me, maybe they think I’m just saying that to be kind. Makes me think about peoples perspectives/expectations are when they think of “voice teacher”.

- September 18th 2018