Music Teacher's Helper Blog

I had an interesting experience working with a pianist who was frustrated with the young singer’s lack of precision with whom she was playing for the other evening. I had witnessed this happening for a bit of time, and decided it was time to have a discussion with that pianist. As I began to talk about my teaching process for my singers and how it differs from learning to play the piano I realized that as a voice teacher teaching technique: I am building a piano.

Unlike instrumentalists who sit down to or pick up their instruments to play, we singers are our instruments. If we have a bad day, a string is broken, or the sustain pedal doesn’t work. If we are not well, have allergies, received a bad grade on exam, or were almost in a car accident – all of these experiences affect our instrument. With singers just developing or perfecting their technique, first and foremost their teacher must ensure that all is well with that “instrument”. One would not ask a student to play a perfect piece on their flute with a popped spring, nor would one ask for a pianist to play a perfect piece with the b flat out of tune. So it is with singers.

Often singers are looked at askance as poor musicians – and it is true in my experience that singers are often not asked to learn music theory in depth as instrumentalists must do to play their pieces well and to progress musically. I learned my theory playing piano and gained most of it in college as a voice major where it was taken much more seriously. I have my singer’s studying theory at their own paces, or playing piano, but first and foremost – comes technique.

I find that once a singer has a developing technique, putting them into “stressful” situations – sight reading in front of others – is challenging and drastically affects their instruments. Subsequently I have formed performance groups which I vary with my students private lessons – which act as master classes and introduce stress in moderate amounts – ie: sight reading in front of other singers. At those moments, I have “controlled” stress which I put my singers through to test their technique – and I always choose the technique staying strong over the precision of the piece at those times. This is so often confused with singers! You would not ask a flute player to throw out their embouchure to get through a piece! You must strengthen the singer’s confidence in these small stressful situations – technique first, music second – before the singer’s mind and instrument can begin to trust, relax, and fall back into alignment when stressed. I feel this is an often overlooked step when building technique in a singer.

So, to ease this pianist’s frustration, I explained that I am not teaching my students how to play the piano; I am helping them to build one.