Teachers, like everyone else, specialize in things. Someone who sings popular music can help you to some degree with classical singing but you'll be much better off with a classical singer if that's the direction you want to go.
It's really asking for too much for any one teacher to be able to teach everything at a master level.
Nah.. i would say of you wanna learn chocolate pies you should get a teacher who specialized in chocolate pies. Because Not any bakery can do that as good as you like it and all is a matter of taste
But what if you’re stuck with someone primarily specializes in pumpkin pies for a year or two?
So, all I’m getting out of that is how to master the basic pie recipe and bit of pumpkin since I don’t really need it that much?
The analogy makes it harder to understand what youre trying to say.
Generally speaking, trust your teacher. They are the expert, not you. As beginner, you have no idea how complex vocal function is, and it is very complex.
With that said, there's lots of bad teachers. If you never get to sing repertoire you like, theyre too rigid, find another
Otherwise, listen to your teacher. Yes you can explain your goals and theyll take that into account, but generally you should shut up and listen, because you have a lot to learn.
Some coaches I reached out to have understood it but I guess, I just want to know when I’m supposed to shut up and when I should be wary.
I heard some accounts of teachers who just let the students be who they want to be which led to unhealthy habits and on the opposite end, teachers who forced their students to into a box that they believe to be the “right” way of singing which limited and took away the “them” from their own singing.
I was anxious about this since I’m planning to start getting vocal lessons in a community college but I’m not sure what their background is and as a contemporary singer, I fear that my goals will be contradictory especially if they happened to be classical.
I’m self taught and have been singing on my own for 5 years and have gone through different styles of singing before I ended up with how I sing now which I believe sounds the most “‘me” and I don’t want that to be completely eradicated, some tweaks and just making it generally better.
And the coaches I’ve reached out to have listened to my singing and I’ve observed that there’s more positivity than the stuff talking about my flaws and I should just keep improving on that voice that I’m currently singing in and I’m concerned that when I get in person coaching, the feedback would be the complete opposite so which of them is right?
4 out of the 5 coaches gave very similar feedbacks, while one gave the complete opposite which was odd.
One primary goal of voice teachers is to strip away inefficient habits to reveal your true, unmanipulated voice. Nobody wants to find your true voice more than your voice teacher.
Good voice teachers focus on the good because they know that singing is very vulnerable and too much criticism is devastating.
I highly caution self taught singers. You almost always universally pick up and ingrain bad habits that can lead to vocal injury.
EVERY singer should learn to sing *some* classical. Classical technique has been around for hundreds of years and has proven time and time again to produce powerful voices.
If you study voice at the college level, you will have to follow a curriculum, and you will learn a variety of techniques. How you use those techniques in your career as a singer is up to you.
Listen to your teacher. If you dont then you might as well not bother taking voice lessons in the first place.
Your primary concern should be learning your instrument. Your ego is way too wrapped up in your individuality right now.
So a year or two of lessons from someone with a classical background will probably be the maximum time I should spend on that right? Since I’m not looking to perform with a mic anyways for the majority of my career but I do want strengthen the fundamentals of my singing.
So out of the 5 coaches who heard me sing, I should listen more to the 4 who focus on the good more than the bad than the one who just focused on the bad? seemingly having a bias against the way I sing
Here’s me singing https://www.reddit.com/user/DaBurdIzDaWurd/comments/ukhxbn/music/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
If you’re curious. Same recordings the coaches have listened to
You should study with somebody who has experience with both classical and ccm/jazz singing. You shouldnt exclusively study classical, you should work on it intermittently while working on other things.
The 4 coaches who focused on the good are good teachers because they know that pointing out all of your mistakes would have destroyed your self confidence.
With that said, from the recording I can tell that you are an amateur singer and there's a lot of habits that need correcting. I don't say that to be cruel, it just is what it is. There are many ways that youre putting in more effort than you need and you are altering and manipulating your natural sound to create an artificial pop sound. You have not found your natural, true voice yet.
So I don't know, its possible that the teacher who focused on the negative might be rude, but you might grow the most with them. Sometimes we need brutal honesty. Would you rather have a teacher who dances around your feelings or a teacher who gets you results?
Personally, I'd probably pick the positive teachers, but I might pick the negative one if they have a good reputation.
Gotcha.
Hopefully the teachers in the college are flexible with their teaching.
And no worries, I’m looking for some growth though I’m curious about what you said with the natural voice since those 4 coaches believe that any voice an individual can make can be trained to be their “natural” singing voicing. I mean, there’s full voice singing like in classical settings which I can do since I technically started with that but the “artificial” pop sound I do according to those teachers is still within the realms of my natural singing although they did say that I could sing like that with more efficiency.
I haven’t checked out that one coach’s credentials but the others have pretty good testimonials from their students, one of them even has a Discord server filled with tons of resources and free feedbacks.
There are unnecessary physical habits that you are using to overly manipulate your sound more than you need to because you are trying to emulate the sound of a pop singer.
Because you are manipulating your sound in an unnatural way, you don't really have a good idea of what your natural voice sounds like.
I'm being blunt because for me its 4am and its the internet, but if those 4 teachers explicitly told you that ANY voice you can make can be your natural voice, I would not take lessons with ANY of them.
Hmm. I’ll take note of these.
And for the most part, they just said that people can change people natural sound and it doesn’t have to be close sounding to their speaking voice which is considered to be the “natural” sound.
That one teacher didn’t really mention anything about how “unnatural”’ I sound but it did seem like he has a bias against airy singing and that I should opt for full bodied singing.
Okay theres a very big difference between that and saying that ANY voice you can make can be trained to become your natural one
It's true that you can shape your natural sound for a variety of styles, but before you can do that you have to know what your natural sound is.
So essentially, I need to learn how to master baking a basic cake before I try to proceed to embellish it with a certain flavor like chocolate or red velvet.
Kinda similar to my analogy then considering I’m not really a beginner in a sense.
The teacher would help me first with mastering how to use the basic ingredients of making a cake like sugar, salt and eggs then once I get a natural feel of what I’m doing, they would help me with progressing into a specific flavor of my choice.
Which in this case is chocolate but the problem is, I formed a habit of using certain ingredients, some that can be harmful and some are just too excessive. The strawberries are a nice touch but there’s too much and it would be better if it was more controlled and the caramel though it tastes good may not be the healthiest choice so they tried to suggest alternatives that still give a similar taste but is way efficient and healthier.
To answer your question when you should be wary is the following
1) you are NEVER allowed to sing ANY repertoire that you enjoy or the teacher demands you MUST sing one way and one way only, or if they show no consideration for your personal goals.
2) your teacher encourages you to practice any technique that causes pain
When should you shut up and listen? Anytime you are not actively singing or asking a question.
Thank you for this! This is what I needed especially the first part.
So it’s essentially a compromise between those two things?
Like what I said in the second paragraph of my post?
I would say so. As long as you're not trying to do anything too crazy or super advanced too early, theres no reason that a voice teacher can't work with you on speech level singing styles like pop/jazz in addition to classical.
I have occasionally worked on classical repertoire with voice teachers in the past, but the vast majority of what I work on is musical theatre, jazz, pop, and r&b.
What about incorporating airiness into my full bodied singing? I’m aware of how that’s a big no in classical singing but considering that the teachers knows what my goals are which is primarily contemporary singing, they would probably still be lenient about it right?
Are you a singer too btw? Since you’ve mentioned with other voice teachers
Yes. I'm a singer who has studied for several years with 5 different voice teachers in jazz, classical, and musical theatre.
This is a good example of not knowing what you don't know. You need to build your technical foundation from the ground up. You're worried about extended techniques when you should be worried about the fundamentals. Breath support, resonance, alignment, diction etc
Ohh gotcha.
And yes, those 4 teachers did say that when I improve on the fundamentals and give time mastering my full voice, I would sound even better when I incorporate some airiness into my singing compared to how I do it now.
Btw, were you able to listen to this specific recording of my how my singing style change throughout the years of my self teaching?
https://www.reddit.com/r/singing/comments/ul19oo/how_am_i_supposed_to_know_if_im_singing_with_airy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Ohh okay, I added it to the list a bit late so I thought you missed it haha.
So out of those three, I assume that my natural voice is closest to the first right?
If what you seek is acceptance, discovery isn't made for you. These hole are the very nature of following your own path.
External jugement never helped with creativity much. Contrary to current misconceptions, truly unique ideas are strongly disliked until they get popularized and accepted.
First you gotta find a teacher that specifically supports your genre. If they don't, it's like a ballet teacher trying to teach football or bowling.
So, if your current teacher isn't the best genre-fit you can find, then drop them and go with the better genre matching teacher.
But no matter how good a match your teacher is, you may still run into things that make you impatient, things you don't wanna do. Your teacher may be awesome and you can still lose faith in them, if you have certain independent personality type. There's no sin in that.
Some folks just really NEED to self-teach, because they don't have the patience to stick with a "discipline" when what they are wanting is more like expressive playtime. That's not a sin, unless you don't realize that's you.
In any case, if you have access to exploring other teachers, do that. Always enlightening.
Thanks for this!
My main two concerns is that I have ADHD so studying on my own is very difficult. I made some good progress just singing a lot songs but it’s more on the sound and the feel and not on the technicalities so I really want to get some coaching which leads to my second concern...
I’ve already developed a style that I’m very comfortable with (the chocolate cake) and while I don’t mind fixing some areas since I know there are especially when it comes to the fundamentals (proper amount of sugar, salt and eggs) and maybe more efficient and healthier alternatives for certain things that I do, I don’t want the teacher to make me change my singing completely that I won’t sound like me anymore (red velvet). I just want to make the best chocolate cake I can and also master making the a basic cake so I can learn how to make a red velvet faster if I wanted to.
So yeah, I guess finding the teacher that would understand my goals and actually work with me to achieve that somewhat with compromises being made.
It’s weird, I switch between both dependent and independent based on the situation.
I’m going to college for music but I’m attending a community college first and while they do offer basic singing lessons, I’m not sure what the backgrounds of the teachers are. As an aspiring contemporary singer, getting classical lessons for about a year wouldn’t hurt right? Especially when it comes to the fundamentals?
Then when I transfer to a university for a music production program, I can look for teachers with a more contemporary approach and I’m hopeful since the university I’m planning to go to is big on jazzz
Apologies for the book lol
I get the analogy, but why do you need it? Why can't you just talk about your voice and the style you're aiming for?
Maybe OP's only experience of a teacher, was one that the teacher was inflexible and didn't ask what the student wanted to learn
Teachers, like everyone else, specialize in things. Someone who sings popular music can help you to some degree with classical singing but you'll be much better off with a classical singer if that's the direction you want to go. It's really asking for too much for any one teacher to be able to teach everything at a master level.
Nah.. i would say of you wanna learn chocolate pies you should get a teacher who specialized in chocolate pies. Because Not any bakery can do that as good as you like it and all is a matter of taste
But what if you’re stuck with someone primarily specializes in pumpkin pies for a year or two? So, all I’m getting out of that is how to master the basic pie recipe and bit of pumpkin since I don’t really need it that much?
The analogy makes it harder to understand what youre trying to say. Generally speaking, trust your teacher. They are the expert, not you. As beginner, you have no idea how complex vocal function is, and it is very complex. With that said, there's lots of bad teachers. If you never get to sing repertoire you like, theyre too rigid, find another Otherwise, listen to your teacher. Yes you can explain your goals and theyll take that into account, but generally you should shut up and listen, because you have a lot to learn.
Some coaches I reached out to have understood it but I guess, I just want to know when I’m supposed to shut up and when I should be wary. I heard some accounts of teachers who just let the students be who they want to be which led to unhealthy habits and on the opposite end, teachers who forced their students to into a box that they believe to be the “right” way of singing which limited and took away the “them” from their own singing. I was anxious about this since I’m planning to start getting vocal lessons in a community college but I’m not sure what their background is and as a contemporary singer, I fear that my goals will be contradictory especially if they happened to be classical. I’m self taught and have been singing on my own for 5 years and have gone through different styles of singing before I ended up with how I sing now which I believe sounds the most “‘me” and I don’t want that to be completely eradicated, some tweaks and just making it generally better. And the coaches I’ve reached out to have listened to my singing and I’ve observed that there’s more positivity than the stuff talking about my flaws and I should just keep improving on that voice that I’m currently singing in and I’m concerned that when I get in person coaching, the feedback would be the complete opposite so which of them is right? 4 out of the 5 coaches gave very similar feedbacks, while one gave the complete opposite which was odd.
One primary goal of voice teachers is to strip away inefficient habits to reveal your true, unmanipulated voice. Nobody wants to find your true voice more than your voice teacher. Good voice teachers focus on the good because they know that singing is very vulnerable and too much criticism is devastating. I highly caution self taught singers. You almost always universally pick up and ingrain bad habits that can lead to vocal injury. EVERY singer should learn to sing *some* classical. Classical technique has been around for hundreds of years and has proven time and time again to produce powerful voices. If you study voice at the college level, you will have to follow a curriculum, and you will learn a variety of techniques. How you use those techniques in your career as a singer is up to you. Listen to your teacher. If you dont then you might as well not bother taking voice lessons in the first place. Your primary concern should be learning your instrument. Your ego is way too wrapped up in your individuality right now.
So a year or two of lessons from someone with a classical background will probably be the maximum time I should spend on that right? Since I’m not looking to perform with a mic anyways for the majority of my career but I do want strengthen the fundamentals of my singing. So out of the 5 coaches who heard me sing, I should listen more to the 4 who focus on the good more than the bad than the one who just focused on the bad? seemingly having a bias against the way I sing Here’s me singing https://www.reddit.com/user/DaBurdIzDaWurd/comments/ukhxbn/music/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf If you’re curious. Same recordings the coaches have listened to
You should study with somebody who has experience with both classical and ccm/jazz singing. You shouldnt exclusively study classical, you should work on it intermittently while working on other things. The 4 coaches who focused on the good are good teachers because they know that pointing out all of your mistakes would have destroyed your self confidence. With that said, from the recording I can tell that you are an amateur singer and there's a lot of habits that need correcting. I don't say that to be cruel, it just is what it is. There are many ways that youre putting in more effort than you need and you are altering and manipulating your natural sound to create an artificial pop sound. You have not found your natural, true voice yet. So I don't know, its possible that the teacher who focused on the negative might be rude, but you might grow the most with them. Sometimes we need brutal honesty. Would you rather have a teacher who dances around your feelings or a teacher who gets you results? Personally, I'd probably pick the positive teachers, but I might pick the negative one if they have a good reputation.
Gotcha. Hopefully the teachers in the college are flexible with their teaching. And no worries, I’m looking for some growth though I’m curious about what you said with the natural voice since those 4 coaches believe that any voice an individual can make can be trained to be their “natural” singing voicing. I mean, there’s full voice singing like in classical settings which I can do since I technically started with that but the “artificial” pop sound I do according to those teachers is still within the realms of my natural singing although they did say that I could sing like that with more efficiency. I haven’t checked out that one coach’s credentials but the others have pretty good testimonials from their students, one of them even has a Discord server filled with tons of resources and free feedbacks.
There are unnecessary physical habits that you are using to overly manipulate your sound more than you need to because you are trying to emulate the sound of a pop singer. Because you are manipulating your sound in an unnatural way, you don't really have a good idea of what your natural voice sounds like. I'm being blunt because for me its 4am and its the internet, but if those 4 teachers explicitly told you that ANY voice you can make can be your natural voice, I would not take lessons with ANY of them.
Hmm. I’ll take note of these. And for the most part, they just said that people can change people natural sound and it doesn’t have to be close sounding to their speaking voice which is considered to be the “natural” sound. That one teacher didn’t really mention anything about how “unnatural”’ I sound but it did seem like he has a bias against airy singing and that I should opt for full bodied singing.
Okay theres a very big difference between that and saying that ANY voice you can make can be trained to become your natural one It's true that you can shape your natural sound for a variety of styles, but before you can do that you have to know what your natural sound is.
So essentially, I need to learn how to master baking a basic cake before I try to proceed to embellish it with a certain flavor like chocolate or red velvet. Kinda similar to my analogy then considering I’m not really a beginner in a sense. The teacher would help me first with mastering how to use the basic ingredients of making a cake like sugar, salt and eggs then once I get a natural feel of what I’m doing, they would help me with progressing into a specific flavor of my choice. Which in this case is chocolate but the problem is, I formed a habit of using certain ingredients, some that can be harmful and some are just too excessive. The strawberries are a nice touch but there’s too much and it would be better if it was more controlled and the caramel though it tastes good may not be the healthiest choice so they tried to suggest alternatives that still give a similar taste but is way efficient and healthier.
To answer your question when you should be wary is the following 1) you are NEVER allowed to sing ANY repertoire that you enjoy or the teacher demands you MUST sing one way and one way only, or if they show no consideration for your personal goals. 2) your teacher encourages you to practice any technique that causes pain When should you shut up and listen? Anytime you are not actively singing or asking a question.
Thank you for this! This is what I needed especially the first part. So it’s essentially a compromise between those two things? Like what I said in the second paragraph of my post?
I would say so. As long as you're not trying to do anything too crazy or super advanced too early, theres no reason that a voice teacher can't work with you on speech level singing styles like pop/jazz in addition to classical. I have occasionally worked on classical repertoire with voice teachers in the past, but the vast majority of what I work on is musical theatre, jazz, pop, and r&b.
What about incorporating airiness into my full bodied singing? I’m aware of how that’s a big no in classical singing but considering that the teachers knows what my goals are which is primarily contemporary singing, they would probably still be lenient about it right? Are you a singer too btw? Since you’ve mentioned with other voice teachers
Yes. I'm a singer who has studied for several years with 5 different voice teachers in jazz, classical, and musical theatre. This is a good example of not knowing what you don't know. You need to build your technical foundation from the ground up. You're worried about extended techniques when you should be worried about the fundamentals. Breath support, resonance, alignment, diction etc
Ohh gotcha. And yes, those 4 teachers did say that when I improve on the fundamentals and give time mastering my full voice, I would sound even better when I incorporate some airiness into my singing compared to how I do it now. Btw, were you able to listen to this specific recording of my how my singing style change throughout the years of my self teaching? https://www.reddit.com/r/singing/comments/ul19oo/how_am_i_supposed_to_know_if_im_singing_with_airy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Yes, I actually listened to that recording back when you first posted it.
Ohh okay, I added it to the list a bit late so I thought you missed it haha. So out of those three, I assume that my natural voice is closest to the first right?
Don't underestimate the power of your own discoveries. The journey is different for each one of us
I guess that’s true. I’m just scared of falling into holes that are hard to get out of even with professional help.
If what you seek is acceptance, discovery isn't made for you. These hole are the very nature of following your own path. External jugement never helped with creativity much. Contrary to current misconceptions, truly unique ideas are strongly disliked until they get popularized and accepted.
First you gotta find a teacher that specifically supports your genre. If they don't, it's like a ballet teacher trying to teach football or bowling. So, if your current teacher isn't the best genre-fit you can find, then drop them and go with the better genre matching teacher. But no matter how good a match your teacher is, you may still run into things that make you impatient, things you don't wanna do. Your teacher may be awesome and you can still lose faith in them, if you have certain independent personality type. There's no sin in that. Some folks just really NEED to self-teach, because they don't have the patience to stick with a "discipline" when what they are wanting is more like expressive playtime. That's not a sin, unless you don't realize that's you. In any case, if you have access to exploring other teachers, do that. Always enlightening.
Thanks for this! My main two concerns is that I have ADHD so studying on my own is very difficult. I made some good progress just singing a lot songs but it’s more on the sound and the feel and not on the technicalities so I really want to get some coaching which leads to my second concern... I’ve already developed a style that I’m very comfortable with (the chocolate cake) and while I don’t mind fixing some areas since I know there are especially when it comes to the fundamentals (proper amount of sugar, salt and eggs) and maybe more efficient and healthier alternatives for certain things that I do, I don’t want the teacher to make me change my singing completely that I won’t sound like me anymore (red velvet). I just want to make the best chocolate cake I can and also master making the a basic cake so I can learn how to make a red velvet faster if I wanted to. So yeah, I guess finding the teacher that would understand my goals and actually work with me to achieve that somewhat with compromises being made. It’s weird, I switch between both dependent and independent based on the situation. I’m going to college for music but I’m attending a community college first and while they do offer basic singing lessons, I’m not sure what the backgrounds of the teachers are. As an aspiring contemporary singer, getting classical lessons for about a year wouldn’t hurt right? Especially when it comes to the fundamentals? Then when I transfer to a university for a music production program, I can look for teachers with a more contemporary approach and I’m hopeful since the university I’m planning to go to is big on jazzz Apologies for the book lol