Thursday 12 March 2015

Confessions of a Singing Teacher

Students have no fear, I'm not about to reveal your secrets, you are quite safe. It is, in fact, about my own lessons, as I have a confession to make. It turns out I have the ability to be a truly dreadful student. I say this without emotion or drama, tis fact. I can be a right old nightmare. 

It occurred to me during my last lesson, when I found myself kneeling on the floor and banging my fists on the carpet in abject frustration at my utter inability to achieve vocal perfection that I was perhaps not behaving very well… My teacher, one of Voxbox’s finest merely looked on with mild amusement and waited for the tantrum to pass. (It was short lived – I do have some control).

In fact over the course of the lesson, mild amusement, general cajolery and one , “ just get with the programme !!!…” were all I received in return from my remarkably patient teacher. Deciding to face up to this and listen back to the recording of the lesson, I had to turn it off after about 40 minutes. There was simply no more, “ but I AAAAAAAM doing that”, “ I AAAAAM dropping my jaw”  and “ AARRGGHHH GGRRRRRRR!!!!!!,”  I could listen to without feeling I needed to call my mother and apologise for shaming her with my unacceptable manners.

Lessons can be seriously frustrating when you just can't break a habit, or find a way through a problem, I have seen it in the faces of my own students when I know they would really like to tell me where to go with my corrections, but are too polite to do it, (many thanks for that by the way!). However when you've calmed down, and let the information assimilate – you can find it all comes together, and generally speaking, teacher was absolutely right. 

So, note to self. Get up off the floor and get with the programme. 

No comments:

Post a Comment