Giving Praise

How do you find a good balance between praise and constructive criticism?  Is saying one nice thing per lesson enough?  Is one compliment per criticism a good balance?  The sandwich method involves telling the student something they did well, then something they can work on, and then wrapping it up with something else that they did well.  I've even heard people say that we need to hear 5 positive things for every negative comment.  

I believe that it will be a little bit different for every lesson.  Sometimes one well-phrased comment about a student achievement will let you sail through a whole lesson of picky details.  Some students don't want to waste time hearing what's already right.  They want to spend every possible minute learning how to be better.  Some students can't see what is working well for themselves.  They only see the flaws, and part of teaching them to sing better is teaching them to acknowledge and trust what they are doing right.  Those kids may need 90% of their lessons to be carefully chosen, honest compliments.  I have also had students that just want to pay me to tell them how awesome they are.  Just building kids up without really teaching them how to sing does not serve them or me.  So in the beginning, these kids also need more compliments so they can swallow the truth I will be giving them next.

What you say and how you say it matters.  It must be sincere and it must be true.  That's not always easy.  While going through my files, I recently found a single sheet of paper titled 99 Ways to Say "Very Good".  I don't know if I received it at a contest I judged or in a class, but I know that I've had it probably close to 20 years.  I love that someone thought we needed to not get stuck it the same boring compliment.  I'm concerned that someone might just pull items from the list at random.  "You've just about mastered that" is very different from "FANTASTIC!"  That's like thinking that all the synonyms listed in the thesaurus for the word nice can be used interchangeably.

When I have a student sing through a song for me, I listen both for things I want to work on and things that worked well.  Very often a trouble spot can be fixed by analyzing what was working well in another spot.  One of my students was singing "Here Amid the Shady Wood" and had a very tight [i] vowel on "seat", but the vowel was gorgeous on "retreat". We discovered that it was actually the way she was creating the s that was causing the tension.  We also found that even though it was on the same  high pitch, when she sang the the word "soul", she released the s tension faster.  By using two good spots, she found beauty and freedom in a trouble spot.  

Elly Ameling has been known to stop a singer, not to correct something, but to comment on the beauty that just occurred, from the singer, the pianist, or both.  Try it with your students.  It's fun.  Most people expect that when they are stopped that it is to fix something.  Some of my students even tell me what was bad before I get a chance to say anything.  No one expects to be stopped because of something they did well.  Maybe we need to do more of that in lessons, and in the world.

I have a couple of secret clubs in my studio.  They are secret because I don't usually tell people about them until they earn membership in the first club.  Plus, no one knows who else is in the club.  Many students perform well and sing beautifully, but membership in these clubs requires a little more.

When I play for my students at lessons, I am playing, listening, trying to help them move through the line, etc.  It's not always as musical as I would like it to be.  But sometimes, one of my singers brings so much to the interpretation of the song that they make me change the way I am playing.  (I've been accompanying for years.  It's habit. If someone gives me something to follow, I will.) Sometimes they will even make me look at a song in a completely different way.  When they make me play musically, then they are given membership in the first club and told about the second.

The second club is harder to get into because it takes a lot to get this response from me. I love and appreciate good music, but apparently I'm not moved as easily as other people are.  Standing ovations bug me because only a handful of times have I been sufficiently moved to justify one.  But that's a post for another day.  Students gain membership in the second club when they give me goosebumps, or when they make me cry.  And this is a very small club.  But, I had a student reach it this week.  She has one more lesson with me before she leaves for college.  Her performance was stunning.  We both wish we had recorded it, because I would put it up against any professional.  The technique was solid. The tone was pure.  She became the character, showing all the subtle changes in emotion.  She found artistry.  And you can bet that I told her just how well she had done. The interesting thing is that when you reach this level, you don't need to be told that it was good.  You know.  She felt it.