How Hard Should I Push?

Although I love teaching voice lessons, it isn't always easy and it isn't always fun.  One of the things I struggle with is knowing how much to demand of my students.  I firmly believe in teaching that emphasizes process and progress instead of just product.  I believe that my first job is teaching people, not building voices.

The school where I teach is a triple A school meaning that they emphasize excellence in arts, academics, and athletics.  Students are challenged to be the very best they can be. Many of my voice students are the stars in not just one area, but in all three of the A's. That's awesome, but it doesn't leave much time, energy, or focus for practicing for their voice lessons.  And voice lessons always seem to be at the bottom of the priority list.

I struggle with how to inspire them to practice more when I know I'm adding to a work load that is already close to impossible.  I don't want to add stress, but I want them to understand that if they want to win competitions and/or pursue music professionally they need to invest more than just the time they spend with me in lessons.

This all came to a head again this week with the lessons of three very talented students who have a competition in less than two weeks.  One is doing OK, but in an effort to improve technically has completely ignored the interpretative side of things over the last couple of weeks.  Another was exhausted and sick and not yet memorized even though the person has had the song since the summer.  The third (normally a very responsible student) just didn't show up for the last lesson and doesn't have any other lessons scheduled before the competition.  And of course because it is always about me (or so I think sometimes) I began to stress out about how I was failing these kids.  I wondered how to make them realize that they have to do more if they want to reach their goals.

Not only did I struggle with how to talk to them, I couldn't find the words to reach out to my colleagues and ask for advise.  I didn't want to look like a bad teacher.

Then another teacher reached out with a concern and in addressing her situation, I found my answer.  My teacher friend has a student dealing with depression and anxiety and asked for feedback about how she should approach things in lessons.  This was my response:

I have been the student struggling with depression and anxiety, and I have worked with several too. At my worst, music was my anchor, and if my teacher had insisted that I take a break, it would have made the situation worse.

Talking with the student and her parents is probably the best option right now. For the student that I have right now in this situation, together we decided that I will offer her performance and competition opportunities, but she gets to make the decision based on what she thinks she can handle and there is no pressure from me. I also remind her frequently that if I'm pushing her too hard in a lesson and she just needs to have a fun sing day that she can request that.

Several years ago, a student's parents sat next to me at the final choir concert of the year and made a point of thanking me for helping their child make it to graduation.

We can't be therapists, but we can support and encourage, and the healing potential of music is why I keep teaching.

As I thought about that response, I realized that I don't know all the details of everything going on the lives of my students.  With rare exceptions, I don't know who is dealing with depression or anxiety.  I don't know who is still experiencing PTSD from a past trauma.  I can't know all that, and I can't make myself responsible for everything in their lives.  But I can offer every student the options that I give to those that I know are struggling.

I've mentioned my tai chi study before.  Every tai chi class I take and every tai chi class I teach reinforces those ideals that first led made me want to teach voice lessons.  Every student comes to us with different needs and each of those students will need to discover the specifics of how singing (or tai chi) happens in their own unique body.  

In his book Teaching Tai Chi Effectively, Dr. Paul Lam says

When working with the young people, you must be well prepared and yet, very flexible.  Listen to them--with your eyes, as well as ears--and adjust as you go.

We must also listen with our hearts.  We must develop empathy and teach with compassion.

Another of my tai chi heroes, Caroline Demoise wrote this her her book, Tai Chi as a Spiritual Practice.    All you have to do to make this apply to voice lessons is substitute singing for every time she uses tai chi here.

Being interested in them as people and desiring to help them achieve their potential are quite different from having expectations about how good their tai chi should be, how far they could progress or how well they have taken advantage of the instruction they have been given.
Don't have expectations for the class.  Students will feel the pressure of your expectations, and it activates their critical voice when they are not progressing to your satisfaction.  Remember whose journey is unfolding.  It is not about you.  Class is each student's personal journey.  As the teacher, you are coaching, providing an environment for learning, giving encouragement, offering feedback and holding the space for them to unfold their potential.
As a teacher you want your student to succeed and reflect your teaching skill, but ideally your ego will take a backseat to your student's own timetable and development.  Students with incredible natural talent may have multiple priorities and may not be focused solely on tai chi, which influences the unfolding of their potential.  Means do not justify the end, and pressure and criticism are never appropriate as inducements to achieve.  Tai chi is not about competition, but about self-development.  Students who have only a little ability but who regularly show up in class, try their best, have a lot of enthusiasm for learning and feel better at the end of class are a visible demonstration of your success as a teacher.  

So how hard should I push? Maybe I don't need to push at all.  I need to give up the word should, and invite and encourage rather than setting expectations or demanding.  At this point, I think all I can do is offer opportunities and provide tools.  Each student needs to decide for himself or herself what to take and how far they want to go.  And I need to be OK with that.

Workshops

I offer my students studio classes every quarter, plus a recital at the end of the year. They also have performance opportunities like MMTA Contest and Exams, NATS, the Masterclass Day sponsored by the school, and our district Solo and Ensemble Contest. This year, I'm throwing in some new learning experiences, some covered by their quarterly tuition, and some with a small fee.  It's a trial program.  I'll see what kind of response I get and then decide if I want to continue these, modify the offerings, or drop the idea completely.

One of the advantages of offering workshops is the opportunity for me as a teacher to give informations to many students at once, instead of taking a little bit of time from everyone's lessons.  Workshops also allow us to explore more depth of the topic than I would probably take in a single lesson.

This year I will be offering 5 workshops:

• MMTA Theory and Voice Exam Prep (Fall session)
• MMTA Theory and Voice Exam Prep (January session)
• Memorization Strategies
• Dealing with Performance Anxiety
• Tai Chi and Singing

MMTA Theory and Voice Exam Prep

Last year was my first year really preparing students for MMTA Theory Exams.  I had a student take the exam the year before, but he had had extensive piano training, so we hardly had to review at all.  Last year, 3 students chose to take the theory exams, and this year, I have a few more that are interested.  I've changed my approach to warm-ups and skills work in lessons for all students so that they are getting a little exposure, and I've asked students who want to take the exams to sign up for longer lessons or extra lessons to make sure we have time to work through everything.  

I'm adding two 90 minutes theory workshops to help students review the material in a group setting.  I'll have different activities and games to help reinforce concepts in a fun way.  Students will pay a small fee for this workshop.

I'm one of those people that is continually revising, but as it stand right now, this is what the structure of the workshop will look like:

• Part I:  Review and Instruction
• Prior to the first workshop, all of the students will have had at least a short introduction to each of these terms or concepts. Many of my students have already learned these things from choir class or other music lessons.  
• Rhythm tree (whole note=two half notes, half note=two quarters, etc.)
• time signature, bar lines, measure
• Sharp, flat, natural
• bass and treble clef
• repeat signs
• tempo, dynamics, articulation (Specific terms for this test)
• intervals--visual and aural identification--use interval songs.  (Only the intervals that the exams cover.)

• Part II:  Individual Work and Tutor Stations  
• Students work in their Theory workbooks.  Worksheets will be provided for students that are taking the voice exam instead of the theory exam.
• If needed, during this time students may move to a station where one of my  advanced students can answer questions.  I will also float during this time, checking student progress and answering questions.  
• Part III:  Reinforce With Games 
• Speed drills with flashcards, reviewing note names, terms, and intervals.  The team that gets the most correct in a certain amount of time wins.  
• Bingo
• Basketball.  Every correct answer earns one shot. 

Memorization Strategies

I've presented this full workshop 5 times now, and I've also incorporated chunks of it into studio classes when I didn't have a full session of singers.  Memorization skills are essential for singers. Until you can get out of the music and really focus on what you are communicating, you can't really make music.  I am a firm believer that everyone can memorize, we just need to find the right strategies and not wait until the last minute to start the memorization process.   

Most young singers still think that the best way to memorize is just to sing the song over and over with the music in front of you just in case you forget.  My workshop explores multiple methods of memorization, employing aural, visual, kinesthetic, and analytical approaches to make memorization faster and more secure.  Several of these options actually work well in a group.  We will also take a little time for individual work with a few of the strategies.  By the end of the session, students will be fairly secure on a song that most of them see for the first time at the beginning of the workshop.  (Yes, it is a very simple folk song, but still, learning and memorizing that quickly is an accomplishment to be proud of.)

Dealing With Performance Anxiety

Because anxiety has been an issue for me, I've done a lot of reading and exploration on this topic.  Pieces of this workshop have found their way into lessons, but I haven't presented the full workshop in a few years, so it's definitely time to do it again.  One of my favorite parts of this workshop it talking about how feeling fear/anxiety and feeling excited actually cause many of the same physiological responses in the body.  We can transform our fear into energy that helps us perform well. I also cover several techniques for calming the body and mind.  And of course, I emphasize that being well prepared goes a long way towards making a performance a more enjoyable experience.  

Tai Chi and Singing

This is my newest workshop.  Although I've been bringing tai chi and qigong into voice lessons for a couple years now, I've only given one workshop on incorporating the two, and that was for the last MMTA convention.  This will be a slight variation on that, teaching students more of the depth of the movements and body alignment.  Tai chi and qigong exercises will be done as we might do them in a tai chi class, and then repeated while singing to reinforce breath and phrase shaping.  

For this year, the memorization, anxiety, and tai chi workshops will be free to all of my students.  In future years, I will offer them for a small fee and I will invite other teachers and students to attend.  All 3 workshops have enough material and depth that students could attend multiple times and still be learning new things.  

If you are interested in having me present any of these workshops to your students or your teacher group, please contact me for more information about rates and scheduling.  

Time and changes

10 years ago, I was starting what would turn out to be my last semester as a grad student, although I didn't know it at the time. I was dealing with all sorts of health issues including hormones and neurotransmitters being completely out of whack. I suffered from a lot of anxiety, particularly when it came to singing. I loved to sing, and had a lot of respect for my teacher and wanted to sing well for her. But the more I wanted to do well, the more anxious I became and the worse things got. For several years after I left school, I would still get sick anytime I went near the university. I even had some minor anxiety when I saw my teacher this summer in a more social setting.

All that anxiety about singing and my voice teacher makes what happened tonight really funny. These first couple weeks of school are usually high stress for me as I'm trying to recruit enough students to pay the bills, but condense my schedule enough that I'm not working insane hours. I'm a little stressed this week and my anxiety is higher than has become my new norm (but no where near what it was in grad school.) So...tonight when at finished lessons at close to 7:30, I was feeling frustrated that once again, there was no way I could get in actual singing practice. My body just didn't have that kind of energy left. I was frustrated and anxious and trying to figure out how to make everything work. As I did one last email check, I turned on a recording of my teacher. Guess what happened? I relaxed. I could feel the tension release in my body as I listened to the beautiful sound. What a great way to end the day! And what a great way to bring this relationship full circle. I met her through a recording and knew that I had to study with her. I studied with her; we had our ups and downs; and I moved on. Now I'm continuing to learn from her recordings.