Empowering Voice Students' Practice: Part 1

Created on Easil

The voice is a unique instrument in that it is literally a part of us. We need to have similar musical skills and facilities as instrumentalists plus, we need to have a very basic understanding of linguistics and foreign languages.

Practicing our instrument presents unique challenges. Since we don't have a tangible instrument, our concept of pitch and rhythm have to be rock solid, and we need to eventually develop very basic piano skills to check our intonation. Our instrument is affected by our well-being: if we're sick, we can't necessarily empty our spit valves (I wish). Genre-fluid singers also lack method books and curriculum for private lessons.* Therefore, a system of practicing needs to be coached for singers to develop independence from their teacher since, a voice teacher's job is to not teach the music but to fine-tune it.


Musical independence does require coaching from the voice teacher initially. Even if a student is musically literate, they may need some guidance on how to practice effectively.


Below, I've created a chart for the guiding musical independence. Next week, we will discuss how to guiding independence artistic decisions.

**The Royal Conservatory of Music has curriculum for predominantly classical singers.