Who's the Right Teacher for You?
08/11/2021
It might be that as your voice teacher and vocal coach, I am quite an important person in your life as a singer. But frankly, I am only a shackle in the chain surrounding you, the singer. If you want to become the best singer you can be, if you want the work with your teacher and coach to create the results you need, you have to hold yourself accountable.
Read my 2 blog posts What’s the Role of a Voice Teacher? and Who Is Setting Your Goals? to learn my point of view on how to take responsibilty for your own progress before and during a voice lesson. Today, I’m going to talk about finding the right (next?) voice teacher.
There are many guides surrounding a singer: Voice teachers, vocal coaches, directors, medical professionals, your band, colleagues, friends, your partner,… They all belong to the team that supports you, and helps you work towards your goals.
But however great they might be, sometimes it’s time to move on. It’s not because they were once just what you needed, that today, they are still offering what you need right now. You change and grow. As a human being, as a singer and as an artist.
The best guides will not stubbornly try to hold on to you, if you tell them that you no longer need their services. They will understand – and encourage – that bless and release is in order.
Imagine that you are in the process of looking for a new guide, for example a voice teacher, and that you are really excited about a particular someone. If this prospective teacher is made out of the good stuff, they will not do everything they can to try to make you their client. They will know that they can not be the perfect voice teacher for everybody.
It might be that they are not offering exactly what you need, which means that you are not their ideal client. Yes, I also have a profile of an ideal client and sometimes, after the Discovery Call or the Intake Session, I will tell you that I think that we shouldn’t be working together. Not because I don’t like you, or because I think you’re a bad singer. I will tell you that I believe you need something else than what I have to offer, and that I would do you a better service if I would refer you to a colleague that I deem to be a better fit.
It is your responsibility to help me make that decision, when it is in order. How? By having done the hard work. By being willing to ask yourself the important questions that help you know who you are, what you want and what you need, as a singer.
Here’s an interesting exercise.
Take the time to answer these questions:
- How would you describe yourself as a singer, today?
- Who have been your past guides on the path towards becoming the singer you are today?
- Who are your current guides?
- How / why did you end up with them?
- Which particular goal(s) are they helping you reach?
- Do you have goals that you don’t have a guide for?
- Do you need a guide in order to reach those goals, or can you do it by yourself?
- If you would need a guide, can you think of someone?
- If not, what are you going to do in order to find that guide?
- Insert your own interesting questions here…
Looking for the answers to these questions will help you take your progress in your own hands much more effectively!
There are so much more important questions you could ask yourself regularly, in order to be able to create a team that will lead you to the best possible results.
Here are some great ones by Michelle Markwart Deveaux from The SpeakEasy Cooperative™️. She has written a whole blog post on it, click the image to read it!
To end with, I’m sharing with you some quotes from Claudia Friedlander, whose second book The Singer’s Audition & Career Handbook is indispensable to aspiring and beginning classical singers. However, what she states in “What Do You Need from Your Voice Teacher?” goes for singers and voice students of all styles and genres.
Do you want to take responsibility for your vocal growth into your own hands after reading this blog post?
Subscribe to The singsing! Sofa Library, watch the webinar You are Responsible and dive deep into what I consider the most important questions you should ask yourself, when embarking on a journey of growth. Whether it be by yourself, or with the guidance from a teacher / coach.
Fiza - Singer & Tour guide
As always, feel free to send me your thoughts, questions, and feedback in the comments below this blog, via the contact form or in the singsing! online community 
Cordially,
Sarah