I am a voice teacher who suffers from early onset Parkinson's disease,
having been diagnosed 10 years ago at age 45. The effects of the disease are
such that I no longer perform except in very informal situations where
people know about the disease and can accept the tremors and other effects.
While my performance is less impressive than it once was, I believe that
dealing with the disease and learning how to sing in spite of the condition
has made me a far better teacher than I used to be, and the challenge of at
least partially overcoming the symptoms has kept me fresh as a closet singer
and a teacher. So I guess that it boils down to why the teacher does not
perform-is it a lack of ability? If a teacher has never had the experience
of developing his or her own voice to a level where public performance is
possible then that teacher would not know exactly how one does that. Does
this make sense?
James Glass [mail to: jwglass@h...]
> -----Original Message-----
> From: GWendel Yee [mailto:gwyee@r...]
> Sent: Friday,May 17,2002 12:23 PM
> To: vocalist-temporary@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [vocalist] Teachers who can't (was--Amazing Opera review)
>
>
> At 02:59 AM 5/17/02 -0500, Christine Thomas wrote:
> >I have a problem with voice teachers who can't (and I know a few). I
> >certainly wouldn't want to take lessons from someone who can't perform.
> >Perhaps if I took voice lessons just for the intellectual
> exercise and have
> >no interest in performing (and I have a couple of students who
> do), it would
> >be different.
>
> I guess this could fall into the category of "individual preference". My
> teacher, now 82 years old, suddenly lost his voice after a bout of
> influenza. He has taught voice for over 50 years, has 3 Met Regional
> winners in his flock, along with more than a few professional opera (both
> local and regional) singers. I'm no expert, but it seems to me that
> without the "gift", he has come to understand the mechanics of voice more
> deeply; and in a way that he can express in words and gestures to us, his
> students.
>
> >The students who interest me the most are the ones who want to
> perform and I
> >think I have something to give them on a technical level and as future
> >performers.
>
> Being an older student, and not an opera star, I sometimes sense
> this, even
> from my teacher whom I respect greatly. Another handful of his students,
> including me, are in semi-professional choruses. He helps us improve our
> voices using the scores we are currently studying. He always
> tries to come
> to our performances, and critiques us afterwards. Despite this, it's easy
> to sense, and also to understand, that he might have more interest in his
> students from LA or SF Operas. The rest of us occasionally get
> "pre-empted"
> when these folks come to town for mini-marathon sessions.
>
> GWendel, dT
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