I’ve written a lot about what a voice lesson is, what it can be, and even what it should be, because I try to present a positive view of most things. But the time has come to talk about what a voice lesson is NOT.

Let’s face facts: I am a serious teacher for serious students. I was trained by serious teachers to be a serious singer, and I was a serious student. I sometimes shy away from owning this, wanting to appear fun and lighthearted, easy-going and cool. And I am  fun, lighthearted, and easy-going (cool, unfortunately impossible), but in appropriate amounts at appropriate times.

Why take voice lessons? I get asked this question frequently, especially with regards to the cost. Here are some of the reasons voice lessons are important and potentially life changing. (They certainly did all this for me!)

The process of singing: aka. the generally slow, usually painstaking, often beautiful, and sometimes exciting development of our voices so that they sound the way we want them to sound, do what we want them to do.

We must be open and flexible in our visions, with our student’s unique voices and personalities as our guides.

"Gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder."- Chesterton

I am always full of praise for my students’ work and progress, but I don’t thank them nearly as much as I should for all they have done and continue to do for me. This is for them (you)!

I am a product and an amalgam of all of these teachers. They are with me all the time, whispering in my ear, guiding me, reminding me, warning me… how to be and how not to be as a teacher to myself and others.

Thank you with all my heart.

Spoiler Alert! This story has an extremely happy ending!

I learned to teach every voice type, gender, vocal problem, temperament, and musical style.

I taught sopranos, mezzos, soprano belters, mezzo belters, sopranos how to belt and belters how to sing soprano; tenors, bari-tenors, baritones, basses, and baritones who wanted to be tenors; dancers who had never sung before and actors who had never sung before.

Sopranos get a bad rap in Musical Theatre today. This makes me mad. I confess, I am myself a soprano, but that is not the only reason it irks me. I’m not quite sure how it came to be that we sopranos are so maligned these days, but here are 10 reasons I think sopranos have the right and need to exist!

I had to take a vocal pedagogy class in graduate school. It was supposed to teach us how to teach a voice lesson. I confess I learned the exact opposite: I discovered what I never, ever wanted to do if I were ever to be a voice teacher, which ironically at the time (1996) I thought I would never be. (Hilarious, I know.)

He said he was very serious about pursing this and wanted to do whatever it took to be a successful singer.  And so we began his vocal training and it took quite a few months for him to be truly comfortable singing. But he fought through the nerves and his voice blossomed. In just a few years, he went from never having sung a note to booking the National Tour of A Chorus Line as the part of Greg!

You and you alone are responsible for the precious gift that is your singing voice. Protect and treasure it.

A voice lesson must be a safe place to put it all out there, the good, the bad, the ugly, the embarrassing. If it isn’t, you are with the wrong teacher. And if you are a Musical Theatre belter, or desire to be one, please find a teacher who understands (and preferably likes) that sound and style and how to teach it.

You could say Julie Andrews was my first voice teacher. No, I have never had the great good fortune to meet the marvelous Ms. Andrews, but I have been listening to her sing since I was a child and subsequently learned vast amounts about singing (and diction and acting) from her immense talent. So in honor of her 85th birthday this week, I will sing her praises.

To me singing and acting have always been inseparable. This philosophy has both saved me and gotten me into trouble. Acting a song well got me through times when my voice was less than ideal and people noticed less because I was entertaining and emotional if nothing else. It is also one of the great joys of singing for me- expressing emotions that I cannot put into words, trying on different characters and feelings= fun!

In March of 1998, my life changed forever. This was when I first met Cornelius Reid, the man who profoundly changed my singing voice, the way I sang, the way I thought about singing, the way I taught, the way I thought about and viewed the world, musically and otherwise, gave me a career, a profession and a new passion.