Now that all the holiday music is pretty much done, it's time to start getting ready for competitions,  NATS, MTNA, the Federation of Music Clubs and others all start their local, state, regional, and further competitions.  It is such a good thing for voice students to sing in competitions, not only because they measure themselves against others of their age or skill level, but because they sing for people who don't know them at all. 

Your own voice teacher is aware of how hard you do or do n...
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We're counting down to the end of the semester at the college at which I teach, and as usual at this time of year half the students are sick.  Several have just noticed that they only have a few weeks left to finish memorizing their repertoire for juries, and a few are actually on track and prepared.  Hail the few!

When I was new to college teaching, I used to be frustrated by last minute preparation, excuses, and too-late-to-do-a-good-job efforts from students.  It doesn't bother me so much a...
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When voice students come into a studio, they expect to receive the traditional one-on-one voice lesson.  Of course, the reasons that most teachers teach one-on-one are very good ones: because each voice is different and because the process must be adapted to the singer, not the singer to the process.  Why, then, do some teachers also require students to come to a voice class?

Voice class is a very useful tool because singers do not hear themselves as their audiences hear them.  What the singer...
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I can't remember when I first heard that instruction for students, but I keep thinking about it this year because I'm teaching the freshman voice class.  Students who come to college to study voice often have very limited ideas of what the human voice can do, and particularly what their own voices can do.  Unless they grew up hearing good singing in many styles, they may have a vocal self image that excludes many useful vocal techniques.  

What does it mean to say it like a singer?  To voice t...
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