> I am not necessarily waiting for her to teach me this it was just that the > first teacher insisted upon doing the walk thru process with me. Recently I > prepared a song and in one section got the pitch wrong as well as the rhythm > wrong and my teacher flew off the handle for preparing it incorrectly. > Anyhow, I really like the responses you all are giving me.
I have been, at certain times, a teacher AND a student (not in the same lesson, obviously). I think the responsibility of the student is to get the notes, etc. as right as possible, within your capability. This differs from singer to singer. I will admit that I have shown up at lessons with music that is learned, but learned in a hurry and I'm sure that shows. My teachers all know I am capable of learning music quickly, but that I also am more than capable of learning it RIGHT. :). I felt guilty for those times and thankfully they were few and far between. Voice lessons are expensive as it is and usually one doens't get enough so if you're spending it on notes/diction (that you can look at before hand in a book) then you are not making effective use of time.
As a teacher - when a student comes in and the music is not as well prepared as I think it should be (and again, this varies from student to student) there may of course be technical reasons. For example, in a meslimatic passage, if there are wrong notes, it may (hypothetically) be because said student is singing too heavily. Yelling at a student or showing great displeasure is not the way to go. However, if it's been 6 months and the same piece is not properly learned, then it is time to sit the student down and find out why, or to make expectations clear.
There is another thing that I have (sadly) encountered as a student. That is the incompetent singing teacher who him/herself DOES NOT KNOW THE RIGHT PITCHES/RHYTHM/DICTION to teach. The teacher whose piano skills are so lacking, and whose musicianship is so poor that music notation makes only a small amount of sense to him/her. I have seen teachers like this unfortunately, yell at the student in impatience for not knowing the music - and when the teacher tries to help, is unable to of course, b/c of lack of know-how. I have found this scary and frankly, I'm not sure if such people should be teaching singing because I do believe teachers of singing should be also musicians (is this an elitist thought?). I hope this is not offensive to anyone. I have also seen teachers teach totally incorrect diction, and totally incorrect rhythm, and it never ceases to amaze me - I just think it's wrong. There are classes to help singers/teachers in those predicments - it seems to me totally irreponsible to be teaching students something incorrect, or becoming frustrating as a result of one's own shortcomings.
In a more harmonically difficult piece, in the lesson with the student I will play the piano part (as accurately as possible) so the student can hear the harmonies b/c, granted, some students are not great pianists and if they can pick out a melody line, that is already a good start. In this kind of a piece, going through it once or twice to double check that notes are accurate, is not a waste of time b/c the piece IS hard. That's acceptable.
Just my opinions. :).
Fiona
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