No one will ever learn to sing from a book, or a blog. You need the trained, objective ear of a vocal technique’s instructor to help you find the best path for your vocal production, no matter the genre. Good, or great singing, is the product of sound teaching, student understanding, consistent study, and PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!!! Singing is nothing more than elongated speech on a pitch. The approach should not be a mystery or complicated. That’s why I call my technique “Sing with the Ease of Speech”. The majority of students that come to me, who have studied with other teachers and are still having singing difficulties, are suffering from wrong information about how the singing voice works. Over my own professional career, I have had 16 vocal teachers, some of whom I found lacking in their understanding of vocal function. They were simply repeating what they have been taught, or what they thought they understood about the instruction they received. Most voice teachers have done little or no research on their own in understanding the function of the singing voice. One of the issues I will discuss in this blog is how to tell if a voice teacher really knows, or has a clue about what she or he is doing, and how it relates specifically to a particular student’s vocal needs.
Clue #1: “If you can sing opera or classical music, you can sing anything!” Nothing is further from the truth! The vast majority of students in today’s vocal markets want to perform some form of “pop” genre. Most teachers don’t understand how to teach anything that resembles the technique needed to perform the very demanding genres of pop, country, gospel, R & B, and most modern musical theater songs. If you have ever heard any of the classically trained singers try to sing a pop song, or even some of the modern musical theater selections, it is at best stilted and un-interesting, and at worse, results in bad form and substance. A very notable exception to this approach is the incredibly talented Christian Chenoweth, whom I had the pleasure of meeting a couple of years back, after her Broadway performance in “The Apple Tree”. In speaking with her, she shared with me her thoughts about her college classical vocal training. After her graduation, Christian said, that she quickly discovered, while pursuing her career in New York, that she needed to find a vocal teacher that could help her develop her “Broadway voice and style” that transcended all genres from musical theater, to pop, to country. In my opinion, she excels in singing any music genre. The next logical question should be “How do I personally know these statements to be true?” I grew up in a small Texas town where the most predominate forms of music were country and church music, both traditional classic church and gospel music. I sang both, and I can assure you that if I were to have sung a Marty Robbins selection with the same vocal approach as I had in singing solos from the Messiah, I would have been laughed off the stage. Even at age 10, I knew that if I wanted to be successful as a singer-entertainer, I had to find a way to sing with ease, flexibility, endurance and power. It took me nearly 20 years to find the answer to that question.
Question: How do you choose the right voice teacher?
Clue #2: “Can the teacher sing with any degree of proficiency and style?” Check my next blog for the answer!
