Congratulations to Sandra for finally finding the right teacher and hanging in there! Aren't the rewards of learning to sing with freedom phenomenal? I am also going to print out your post for one of my students, a 36 year old tenor who had years of bad teaching. He wanted to sing more than anything, but had been made to believe his talent was limited. He is now on the right track and promises to be a beautiful lyric tenor. He, like you, is patient and trusting and deeply committed. He says he doesn't care how long it takes as long as he can sing someday, somewhere. What an awesome responsibility I think it is to teach. I feel as though I have the student's whole life in my hands sometimes.
I agree with Mr Hanson: The language of singing/teaching must be clear, precise, scientifically accurate and above all, effective. I do not believe that images are, for the most part, particularly helpful. Telling a student to make the sound point toward the top of his head or to squeeze out the breath as from a toothpaste tube are directions that no person of normal intelligence could follow, so it is no wonder they do not work, not to mention they defy physiology. It behooves us to "get it right". Reading Sandra'a post shows how important that is.
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