I started studying voice in high school because I wanted to learn how to sing beautifully. I sang my first musical my freshman year as a member of the chorus, and one of the principals recommended her voice teacher to me. I started taking lessons, and thus began to explore my vocation. My father, a saxophonist and pianist, used music as his hobby, and both of my parents were against me majoring in music in college and pursuing it as a career. But as I found during the three years I studied voice in high school, singing and music was vital to my development as a person, and I feel the need to share the lessons I learned with my students.

I was not one of those singers gifted with natural tone quality and resonance. My voice teacher in high school often had me do seemingly strange things physically – stand on one foot, raise my arms above my head, bend over at the hips, lie on the floor with my knees up – to try to achieve the sound we both wanted. I did whatever she asked because I knew from hearing her other students what that teacher-student trust could achieve. I also threw myself into daily practice, and soon I was starting to gain tone quality and resonance. When I auditioned my sophomore year for the musical, the director was taken aback at the progress I had made, and I got a role. For this reason, the central tenet of my teaching philosophy is the discipline of daily practice. Without it, students cannot get results, and they will never be self-sufficient.

When I was a senior in college, I was required to take a vocal pedagogy course. As part of the course, we were to observe three private lessons with three different teachers. Of my three observations, two teachers stood out for how clearly they applied their teaching philosophy to the lessons they gave. For example, one of them asked the student every so often to describe what they were feeling in any given exercise, so that the student had to think about and articulate their technique in their own words.

The other teacher I observed took a slightly more direct approach. Instead of asking the student questions related to their technique, she explained the technique as she understood it and said, “I wish I could go and sing all of this for you, but I can’t. You have to do it yourself.” Both of these teachers believe in making the student self-sufficient to their skill set, and it is that same belief that I strive to implement as a teacher.

The purpose of voice lessons is to help the student become aware of their instrument – their body – so that they know how to produce the sound they want on their own. For this reason, ultimately the voice teacher’s job is to become unnecessary. When I teach a voice lesson, I start with stretches that help the student feel their breath not just in their chest but in their back, too. Then, I have them do a siren or sigh to explore resonance. It often exposes their range and makes them aware of any “breaks” between registers. I start vocalises with the five vowels on one pitch in the middle of their range, first separating each vowel with breaths, then stringing them all together in one legato line. This teaches both proper closure of the folds and sustaining that closure for a full phrase. Other vocalises depend on the day, but I like to stretch the student’s range both high and low and help them explore areas where they feel less comfortable so that they eventually will be comfortable. The teacher’s job is to observe mindfully so that they know which exercises will help each individual student achieve that feeling of comfort. There is nothing so satisfying as a student realizing their progress when they have worked on something, then finally achieve the sound or feeling they want.

Mindful observation also comes into play when selecting repertoire for a student. The pieces they study must be appropriate for the quality of their sound, their age, and their level of study. Ideally, the repertoire will be something the student enjoys but also presents a challenge.

As a teacher, I choose to demonstrate as little as possible so that my students do not try to imitate my sound. The greatest joy I have found in singing is discovering my own individual voice, and I want to pass that on to all my students. This means that each lesson is about them, not about me. If I’m introducing a new exercise, I might demonstrate once or twice, but ultimately they do not need to hear me singing. They need to sing.

Every student will have times when they feel frustrated, for any number of reasons. When I was in undergrad, one of the doctoral students who taught diction told me never to stop having fun with singing. I remind myself of that constantly, and I strive to remind my students of that. Singing is a true gift, and from my experience I can say that the best times I’ve had have been when I did not take it too seriously. By contrast, the worst times have been when I placed too much importance on it. Teaching puts that into perspective. I see the progress my students make and the joy that singing brings them, and I’m convinced that we can, in fact, temper the discipline of our art with fun.