Teaching Singers? How’s Your Vocal Technique These Days?

Music Room
May 11
4 min read

Are you teaching anyone to sing? How’s theirs? If you don’t have an immediate, definitive answer to questions 1 and 3, take a moment and think. Let me present some better questions for you to reflect on:

Did your training on vocal technique pedagogy cover everything you encounter?
Do you, yourself, sing with technique that you are confident is correct and simultaneously protects the voice you use to teach every day?
Are you able to give immediate solutions to undesirable technique situations that your students have without needing any trial-and-error?
Can you do this just by looking at them and hearing one sample of singing?

If you answered no, or at least not a confident yes, it may be time for a refresher or an amp-up in your technique pedagogy knowledge.

First, There are Some Realities To now:

You have students that go home and sing full-out when no one is listening, when they’re home alone. They’re experimenting with their voice in ways you have no idea about.
You have students that watch AGT and The Voice and secretly want to be those teens that sing that the crowd adores.
You have students that constantly question if they’re doing something right that you are teaching them. Even if you think you were instructing clearly, they will overthink something.
Students in your musicals will push themselves to keep singing, even though it hurts because they were raised with the mentality of “No pain, no gain.” They may not tell you because they don’t want to appear weak or not worthy.
You have students in your classes and choirs that are petrified of making a sound, and they’re lip-synching every day.

Maybe you knew all of this, but hearing it from another professional is a good reminder that even if you know how to help every one of these situations, to make sure that you are. Make sure that your students always know the “how” of what they need.

And to make sure that you haven’t missed anything amid the concert prep, the logistics, and everything else you do as a busy music teacher. Maybe it’s time for a quick technique pedagogy reboot?

Let’s not forget that there’s benefits for you too!

Increase student retention: Better instruction leads to student progress and enjoyment, reducing drop-out rates.
Expand teaching scope: Enhanced skills enable teachers to handle diverse learners, levels, and genres, broadening their student base. Imagine the quick flexibility you’ll have!
Improve lesson value: Mastery of instructional techniques makes teachers indispensable and justifies higher rates of private lessons.
Ensure healthier singing: Correct technique minimizes vocal strain and prevents long-term damage, safeguarding well-being for students and you too.
Enhance student growth: Effective pedagogy and delivery of all that subjective material enables faster progress, greater musicality, and increased confidence in students.
Stay current with trends: Professional development keeps teachers updated with modern methods, strategies and use of technology to help understand vocal science.
Build a stronger reputation: Consistent, high-quality instruction fosters positive word-of-mouth, attracting more students that know you’re looking out for them.
Personalize instruction: Refined skills allow teachers to adapt their approach to individual student needs and learning styles. There is no one way to teach a student to sing well.

Even if you have a partial handle on the issues and topics presented above, it’s not a bad idea that for some (maybe required) professional development, that you take a course that can help wrangle all of these challenges for you. Besides, relevant PD for music teachers?! That’s a thing? Yes!

Solutions for Teaching Vocal Technique and Vocal Pedagogy

Uplevel U: Music is a platform for music teachers and other performing arts teachers to strengthen REAL everyday aspects and challenges of their jobs. The next course to be released is “Vocal Pedagogy for Non-Voice Majors”. It’s set to be released in a few weeks, so join our email list to get updates on when courses and resources become live and available to you!

“Vocal Pedagogy for Non-Voice Majors” is geared toward the music teacher that needs to teach students singing in a general, choral or theater setting, but perhaps didn’t get the training that their voice major colleagues may have gotten in college. But even voice majors with good training may feel a little unclear about how to teach some of those challenging subjective topics to their singers.

Course creator Karen (Kay) Janiszewski has been teaching voice since graduate school, for over 15 years, and has helped some students begin and continue their professional careers as singers. She has helped singers work through vocal fatigue and overuse issues, and has helped them with very specific tone and expression challenges. As a specialist in instructional delivery, pedagogy and private music instructor development, “Vocal Pedagogy for Non-Voice Majors” will break down the most difficult vocal concepts and help you instruct your students on them with ease and confidence. Let her share her knowledge and experience with you with an online, on-demand, self-paced certificate course. Set for release in June 2025!