Vocal Advice

I’m mommy to Emma & Audrey’, who are 6 & 4 yrs old.  They are taking private voice lessons together for 30 minutes a week.   I have heard from someone that when kids take voice too early that they can permanently damage their voice … nodules or something like that.   What do you think about that?   Do you think 4 & 6 is too young?   I think their teacher is knowledgeable & has lots of experience teaching very young kids.   She has been the music teacher at my children’s preschool for several years & has been teaching private voice lessons for a long time. She seems to be teaching them proper breathing techniques, etc.  Please let me know what you think.   If you need more information to access, please let me know.

Thanks,
Concerned mommy.

Dr. A: I replied to this note with a request for more information.  “Concerned mommy” replied in some detail about the children’s activities, the capabilities of the teacher and her desire for a well-rounded upbringing.

ANSWER: Dear Mommy of Emma and Audrey,

As you can see I’ve not been in a hurry to post a reply to your questions, for I thought it wise to let this issue “sift” in my conscious and subconscious for some time before putting words to my thoughts.

I need to be honest with you and tell you that I have had conflicting, almost fiercely antagonistic thoughts on the matter.  But don’t fear.  I will be brief and try to be careful in expressing myself.

My knee-jerk reaction response would NORMALLY be something like: “It is utterly absurd to have a 4 and 6 year-old taking voice lessons!” and then follow my high-blood-pressure response with a litany of negative results that I’ve observed in college students who started out that way.

But, let me get back to my reservations after first saying that I sense that you have all good intentions for your girls.  Furthermore, there are teachers who specialize in communicating to young children effectively.  I’d guess by your description that you believe that that is the kind of teacher your girls have currently.  This time in their lives could be a time when a great love for music and music making is cultivated.  For children their age, love for music-making should probably be the chief aim of the teacher.  At the age of your daughters, learning to sing should be fun … relatively easy … and without pressure, period! The moment they sense “expectations” from you, (and they can sense it very readily) they will experience “pressure” that will have defeated the purpose for their “studies” at this age.  DON’T take voice teaching to such young folk too seriously.  Taking voice lessons too seriously (mom and teacher) presents the danger for small children.  The voice is NOT like a piano, an eighth-size cello, or quarter-size violin.

Therefore, my response is necessarily weighted more on warning, than applause.  There must be “acceptance” on the part of a teacher of small children … that what they get (i.e., what they hear) is going to be “childish.”  Hearing, vocalizing and coordination are all in the process of development.  When voice teachers push youngsters and adolescents into “sounding mature” early, the very warnings you have already heard concerning “permanent damage” are realized and most frequently occur then.  I can attest that such damage caused in a youngster is very difficult to fix in a young adult, and sometimes it is permanent.

There are “Fine Arts” and “Performing Arts” summer camps, many in the northeast of the country, some making claims of the long list of musicals they are able to mount.  I have been employed as a voice teacher in one prominent such place, and can tell you that the vocal damage done to children’s voices by the demands of (children’s) Broadway musical directors, and the teachers hired by ambitious parents wanting their children to be stars, is appalling.  Protect your children from such pressure, and allow them to enjoy music making.

Best wishes.

This is not a popular subject, because anyone who is called or known as a charlatan has to live down a tainted reputation.  However, with regard to voice teaching the subject has to be addressed.

The term charlatan refers to someone who falsely claims to have special skill or expertise.  Applying it to our area, it is someone who advertises himself/herself as a voice teacher who does not have the education, knowledge or skills required to teach in this area with a modicum of credibility or integrity.

Regrettably, it is fair to say that there are many “voice teachers” who are really charlatans.  A number of these are singers who have either had a concert career or made recordings, whether it be in opera, country music or on the rock scene, and therefore, feel justified in putting themselves forward as teachers of singing.  Others who frequently fall into this camp are college graduates who were either voice performance majors, or who at some point in their college career studied singing with a voice teacher, but who at no point had any specific instruction in vocal pedagogy.  These are the teacher “wanna-bes”.  Then there are others who simply have the “desire and ego” to lead, conduct and teach with no formal preparation at all other than lessons on one instrument.

Such organizations as the National Association of Teachers of Singing exist to ward off the above kind of fraud, and bring to the public some semblance of credibility and integrity.

A young man in his late teens who, I’m sure, had honorable intentions, but who had little vocal training asked me for advice on how to coach a student of his with a perceived vocal problem.  This teenage “teacher” helps his church music program by conducting their ensemble.  It would be well for me to share with you my edited response to him.

The kind of question you ask … is not something I can credibly answer without hearing [your student].  I would not do you a service (nor would anyone) by guessing the real scenario.  I don’t know her age, her vocal maturity, etc.  …Forgive me, but I’d also not do you a service, for, as far as I know you are not qualified to teach someone else, since I do not have evidence that you’ve had courses in vocal pedagogy or have been under the tutelage of a master teacher who has witnessed in you a talent/aptitude for listening, diagnosing and correcting vocal problems.  Another way of saying this is that my attempting to actually help the person you are coaching based on your description and your experience and without hearing her myself is not wise and probably unethical.

Let me explain it with an anecdote.  I went to college in Philadelphia - a huge and wonderful cultural center.  I was in college for six years earning two bachelor degrees, one of them in music - vocal performance.  I had performed in many recitals and successfully completed the junior and senior recitals and performed the solo roles in some major oratorios.  (I preferred oratorio to opera then.)  The year after I graduated I worked and saved money to go to graduate school (in music).  But during that year I also studied voice with a renowned (famous) voice teacher paying a lot of money to do so.  Now, I had by this time received an earned degree in music, vocal performance.  But when I admitted to my teacher that I was teaching voice to a handful of high-school students, her unhesitating response was “You charlatan!”  While I took her reaction in good humor at the time, I have, with advanced education and experience, since come to see and agree with her perspective knowing more the reasons for her instant assessment.

So, I think it’s great that you have the desire to become a voice teacher.  But, know that it takes a good deal of concentrated instruction - much of which is necessarily not procured solely from books - over a period of years of preparation and oversight from a master teacher.  I know this is not the answer you had hoped for.  However, I would not do you or the person you are coaching a favor by attempting to answer your question under the current circumstances.

I hope you can receive what I’ve said, knowing that it is for your ultimate good.

Typically, a credible voice teacher will not only have studied singing for several years—at least four and usually many more—with a voice teacher, s/he will also have taken courses in vocal pedagogy, mastering an understanding of the nature of sound especially as applied to the voice, posture, breathing and support, phonation, registration, resonation, articulation, the speaking voice, coordination and vibrato.  A voice teacher will have spent time under a master-teacher honing his/her listening skills and abilities to accurately diagnose a vocal problem and devise appropriate remedies during a time of apprenticeship.  Not everyone who learns to sing also has the ability to teach singing!  When consistent success is observed by the master-teacher in the apprentice, then and only then, can the young voice teacher receive written recommendation as a voice teacher by an experienced one.  The “nubee’s” studio will usually consist of a homogeneous group of students, until experience warrants students of wider age ranges.

My warning is not meant to discourage those of you who want to teach.  My purpose is two-fold.  1) Watch out for quacks, frauds, and well-sounding “teachers” who really do not know the craft.  Some are only in it as a means of income.  2) If you want to become a teacher of singing, invest the time and effort to acquire the knowledge and the skills to assure that you have integrity that can be approved by all observers – particularly by those with experience in the craft.  Your students will be the ones to reflect beneficially, or detrimentally, on your preparation.