More vocal pedagogy

I have a new lecture I give my singing students, on top of the ones dealing with breathing/support, cranial focus (the plumb line) and dealing with vocal registers and all that they imply. I gave it to my ditzy blonde last week and I gave it to my baritone today, and it goes something like this:

As a singing teacher, I have to be very careful not to hurt my students’ feelings. Your voice is your instrument, just as a guitar or a clarinet or a violin is an instrument. My job is to teach you how to play it better. But because your voice is part of you and inseparable from your body and because there is so much emotion tied up with singing, you may feel that I am trying to change you in some way, when in fact I am only trying to teach you how to play your instrument better. Students of singing don’t always understand that what I am doing will make them better singers because they can’t see the direct results of my actions. If you were playing the guitar and I were to suggest to you a different hand position, you would understand that, you would be able to see it and immediately notice results. But because your voice is within you and you can’t yet hear yourself effectively, you have to rely on my ears and trust my judgement without understanding what I am getting at. Because I cannot reach inside your throat or mouth to make adjustments to how you play your voice, I have to use imagery so that you can make the small adjustments yourself to your tongue, soft palate, throat, and the images I suggest may not immediately make sense to you. So don’t feel that I am attacking you or trying to change you, the person. I am teaching you how to play your instrument better. Trust me.

I think this (or something like this) is what I should have been saying for years. Why does it take so long to figure these things out?

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