We went to a friends’ birthday party on Saturday and got chatting with someone about how to become a singing teacher.
What happened was, I struck up a conversation with someone my wife went to university with, and we were talking about what she did for a living. She then confessed she really doesn’t enjoy it that much, and is looking for a change. When I asked what she was thinking of doing, they said something along the lines of the following:
“Well, I love singing and working on my voice, and I’m seriously considering trying to learn how to become a singing teacher and coach voice as well as improving my own”
Obviously, we then started chatting about what I do, what that involves, how that works, and why got into it. They had also come across Seth Riggs, SLS (Speech Level Singing), etc in her recent research, and her interested had been piqued by what kind of vocal techniques are out there.
Given that there may be others of you who have a minor to moderate (or maybe serious?) interest in pursuing a similar path, I thought I’d share exactly what’s involved from the perspective of someone who does this every day.
1. The voice has a specific way of working, and you need to learn how it works.
This is not in a vague qualitative way, nor ONLY in a scientific way. You need to understand :
a) how the voice as an instrument works to a sufficient functional level;
b) how different tools (e.g. consonants, vowels, and scale/arpeggios, etc) affect this functional behaviour of the voice to elicit tonal changes; and
c) the tonal and functional “target” we are trying to hit as voice coaches, as well as how to use the components in b) to affect part a) to get there.
IMPORTANT: Just being able to style the voice, or help someone sing a few songs better is not what we are talking about, nor is it sufficient. Only styling the voice or telling someone to be louder/softer, riff more/less, is not building a voice or making it better. That is what a style coach does, and should be done after a voice is more or less built and finished (other than ongoing maintenance).
You must be willing to put the time in to learn the above in order to become a professional voice coach. This is the foundation to being a great voice coach, and it takes continual work both to evolve your technical understanding, your aesthetic understanding, and your musical understanding of how all this ties together in song. This is the same level of skill set that a lawyer/solicitor or accountant would acquire, develop and refine to be the best professional they can be.
2. A musical brain and an analytical brain go hand in hand
In my experience, the most analytical brains tends to understand the technical requirements quickly, but often fail to hit the aesthetic target, simply because their musical capacity is not as developed as their analytical capacity. On the other hand, the ones with a more artistic/musical inclination but who are weaker analytically tend to also miss the ideal aesthetic target. This is often because they are too quick to accept sounds that are musically valid but yet not functionally as correct as they should be. Don’t get me wrong, the singer/artist is to be the ultimate judge of what they like/dislike, but a voice coach should be building a voice to be as correctly developed as it can be to thereby enable the singer/artist to pick what they want. Technique will enable, not get in the way, but only if applied correctly.
As such, if you have a mind that is both musical AND analytical, people such as yourself have the balance that is needed to make excellent coaches (at least in terms of latent ability). This is because you have the capacity to aim towards a particular aesthetic target that is based on correct vocal function, as well as applying appropriate technical exercises to get there whilst constantly evaluating a singers’ progress towards their musical endeavours.
For the avoidance of doubt, I’m not saying one cannot overcome a lack in one area to be better, but my general observation is that having both a musical AND analytical capacity supercharges your ability to become a great teacher.
3. You must be teachable
This road is a never-ending journey. When you stop learning, you stop growing… and when you stop growing, that spells the end. In more professional terms, this is CPD – continuing professional development. In every regulated industry there are requirements for CPD to ensure you stay both qualified and up-to-date to refine your skill set. This should be no different for anyone considering becoming a voice coach, however, because of the slightly more individual and niche nature of voice coaching, it is very easy to fall prey to thinking “you’ve arrived” when really, we’ve all got a long way to go. Let me explain.
Having been around a fair while, I’ve seen far too many teachers get a little bit of knowledge, and then suddenly strike off on their own and declare themselves “finished” in an educational and developmental sense. Nothing could be further from the truth. I even get a number of teachers and coaches come in for lessons with me, and their voices and teaching methodology have a LONG way to go before I’d consider them competent, but they continue on by themselves regardless. This is both damaging to them and to the industry as a whole. You must keep learning from those more experienced than yourself, and seek out exposure of your weaknesses to improve upon them. This is the same in any other professionally regulated industry, and everyone who wants to be a voice coach should have this attitude.
You must be and remain teachable throughout your career as a voice coach, and be diligent in your CPD. To some extent, you’ve got to become even MORE teachable as you get more experienced, to be willing to take on-board and test new information to see if it’s valuable or helpful for expanding and refining your toolkit.
As such, if you are someone who is generally humble and willing to learn, you will find these traits valuable in progressing your skill set and therefore your clients’ voices.
4. Be professional // “Merely good” is not good enough
If you are thinking of becoming a voice coach/singing teacher, then good for you!
That said, a final bit of advice would be that you should be conscientious enough to approach this like any other professional industry – to be excellent at what you do.
My honest opinion is that going into this to become “merely good” at your job isn’t a good enough reason. We have enough poor and uninformed coaches out there as it is. What we need are people who take voice coaching as seriously as they might take becoming a lawyer/solicitor, or an engineer, or a doctor, nurse or therapist. There should be an expectation and inner standard of excellence you hold yourself to, and you should be aiming to be genuinely great, not just merely good. At the very least, you will also find it tricky to make a decent living, and worse would just be adding to the noise if you go into it half-heartedly.
That said, if you are conscientious and strive to be professional in your day-to-day life, then you would find these traits a massive help in becoming a voice coach (and better still, doing well as a coach!).
As a parting thought…
I’ve written this in the hopes that people understand more about what it takes to become a voice coach and what good voice coaches work towards in their continuing professional development. I’ve tried to highlight the skills one might need, as well as the pitfalls I see others fall into as they veer off (what I feel) is the best path for professional development.
If anyone reading this is interested in finding out more and perhaps would like a chat regarding becoming a voice coach or embarking on this path, then please do drop me a line and we can set something up.
Learn More: Related Articles
If you’d like to learn more about what good vocal technique and vocal function involves, check out these related articles:
Pursue vocal function BEFORE sound, every time
What makes a song “feel” high?
Tongue Tension: How to spot it and fix it
5 Reasons Sleep Helps Boost Your Singing
A Key to Great Singing: Hyper-function vs Relaxation