I think Fiona hit the nail on the head! There are 2 sides of the coin, as
usual!
On one side there is a student. The onus is on the students to be serious
about their studies, and to learn the best they can. And that includes
learning the notes, rhythms, words. If a student is not capable of doing any
of this by himself so/he has two options: a) work on their piano skills,
musicianship and languages until they can be self-sufficient; or b) employ
the coaches who will drill all that into their heads. Most of the singers
use a combination of these two approaches. We learn some things by
ourselves, the other things with the help of the coaches. One thing a
student cannot expect is to have a voice teacher do the work for them.
On the other side there is a teacher. And, as Fiona has rightly noticed,
there are some teachers whose music skills are very, very limited. They do
not play piano, cannot tell if the pitch is wrong, have no idea about proper
rhythms - especially when it comes to more complicated ones, like tuplets or
syncopations. And, the most common one - they do not know any other
languages besides their mother tongue. Also, often enough, there are teacher
who even if they recognize a technical problem, have no idea how to solve
it! How to avoid them? This is the biggest problem for any voice student,
and a separate topic!
OTOH, I can relate very well to the situation in which a student does not
make an effort to learn. And, if indeed 6 months go by by the time a student
has memorized a song, I take the student on the "red carpet" and inquire
about the reasons. I try to determine if the lack of progress is because the
student does not apply himself or because so/he does not know how to learn
and maybe needs help (coaching).
My advice to the original poster:
The transition between, do-it-all teacher and a do-it-yourself one, could be
very hard on the student who is not used to this approach. But, if your
aspirations are to sing classical music (opera in particular), I'm afraid
that preparing on your own is the "standard" that most teachers do expect.
To help yourself - in addition to getting all the skills you can - piano,
musicianship, theory lessons, languages, etc - which may take quite a few
years to acquire - find a good piano coach. Many of the good ones will help
you also with the languages. Worth the money!
Personally, I'd be very cautious of "temperamental" teachers - many of them
are that way because they either want to cover their own inadequacies or
have their egos blown out of proportions. Either way - not good environment
for a student.
mariella
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