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."
|
|  |
