Vocalist.org archive


From:  <peggyh@i...>
Date:  Fri Mar 8, 2002  1:30 pm
Subject:  Re: [vocalist] Unlearning damage before you've learned anything?

Matthew wrote:
<<Here's my problem. I started singing lessons my freshman year in college in
1994, and have been studying on and off ever since then,
but I've never really seemed to get anywhere.>>
<<So, it's getting impossible for me to not feel that the problem
isn't the teachers I'm working with, but rather myself. >>
<<Is there any way to actually move forward from where I am, or am I just sort
of trapped here? If anyone has any idea how I might be able to conquer this
particular problem, I would love to hear it.>>

It's difficult to say without knowing more about you. Since I know nothing
about you, please don't take anything I write here to be about you personally.

To start with the general....learning to sing is an interactive process. The
best teachers help the student tune into what they already know how to do that's
effective, and it's the student's job to apply that knowledge/insight a larger
portion of the time.

It's a hard process, because we're each unique, and what works for you probably
won't work for me. So the teacher is helping you help yourself. The best
teachers tune into your learning style and find ways to communicate with you
that are effective. The best students are proactive, ask for explanations when
they don't understand, so that they help the teacher help them.

As far as getting more specific help from this list, it might be good for you to
write us more about your singing: What you think you do well, and what things
you want to improve on. What things have you tried and tried and they just
haven't worked for you? What things have you worked on that made you feel you
were on the right track, but then they stopped working for you? What type of
music do you like to sing? Which singers do you enjoy listening to the most,
whose style you might want to emulate?

Welcome to the list - I look forward to hearing more from you!

Peggy

---
Margaret Harrison, Alexandria, Virginia, USA
"Music for a While Shall All Your Cares Beguile"
mailto:peggyh@i...



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