Funny, sardonic comments about teaching are not rare. May I cite a couple?
Maestro Arturo Merlini of Milano was a non-singer who became one of the most sought after voice teachers in Milan. When I studied with him in the late 1960's, he had twelve pupils (including former pupils) singing on stage at La Scala and he was selected as head voice coach at La Scala around 1969. His own degree Milan Conservatory degree in piano. His pupils included Scotto, Petrella, Campora, Reale, Ottolini, Nurmela, Kabaivanskaya, Stignani (to whom he taught roles only; her voice did not need any training), just to name a very few.
In Milan icy putdowns among voice teachers were legion: particularly plentiful were those aimed by ex-singers aimed at voice teachers who had never sung professionally. (Having studied with over 30 voice teachers, thanks to my movement from one country to another in the American Foreign Service, I can say that there are excellent and awful voice teachers among ex-singers and non-singers. Logically so, since any one, at will, can hang out his or her shingle.) Merlini's acid putdown about singers who become teachers went like this:"When singers encounters vocal difficulties they cannot correct in their own voices, they think they are now competent to teach others."
My father, William M. Tanner, is better known as a textbook writer (Correct English, parts I and I inter alia) than as a teacher, but he did teach at Harvard, Radcliffe, and BU and hated it because, being shy, it was painful for him to satand up in front of a class. He was grateful when Ginn & Co. persuaded him to stick to textbook writing. and give up teaching. He had a brother-in-law who was a professor of Education at the Univeristy of Texas at Austin, so he concocted the following bit of doggerel about teaching: "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach, write textbooks for teachers to teach. And those who can't even do that, teach Education."
In my recently published book of back stage humor, "Opera Antics and Anecdotes, I have a longish chapter on back-stage and off-stage actual comments about the teaching of singing. The chapter is entitled: "I Teach Bel Canto. The Others Teach Can Belto."
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