This summer has been exciting not just because of fun trips which I’ve been able to make back to Atlantic and Decorah, two of my former hometowns, but also because I have taken on NINE new private voice students – all middle school or high school guys, and most of them taking private voice for the first time in their lives. This dramatic influx of new students comes after a bit of a lull in which my private studio (outside of Carthage) had dwindled to a tiny handful of students. Not that I was complaining very much about that. Life is always plenty busy for me and it’s not like I haven’t had more than enough to do- but at the back of mind, I did find myself from time to time lamenting the fact that I wasn’t spending quite so much of my off hours teaching voice. And I knew that I wasn’t alone; I’d talked to several voice and piano teachers who had experienced a comparable drop in their numbers …. and for some of them where this is a more central component of their professional lives and the source of significant and necessary income, it was a more alarming experience. For me, it was just something I was a little sad about- although with all of the spectacular guys I’ve been so blessed to be teaching at Carthage over the last two years, I’ve still had more than my fair share of fun and satisfaction as a voice teacher. But there is a different sort of fun and satisfaction that comes in working with younger guys, in whose lives you can make such a profound difference.
I’m still not sure just how or why, but back in the spring I began to get one email or phone call after another about various young guys wanting to study voice. And as these requests began piling up, I couldn’t help but remember the words of a highly regarded voice teacher who gave a presentation at the 2012 NATS convention in Orlando, Florida- a presentation specifically about teaching young males. (She was renowned for her fine work with boys.) Although she presented a lot of helpful information, what I took away from her talk more than anything was this exhortation: Whenever a boy wants to take voice lessons from you, say yes. PLEASE say yes. It was her contention that one of the reasons we have fewer men than women singing is that many males become discouraged and/or terribly self-conscious in that period when their voice begins to change. Some males make that transition very seamlessly (An outstanding middle school teacher in Racine, Keri Bieri, tells me that Mike Anderle, one of my prize students at Carthage and one of her former students, continued to sing beautifully right through his change, with none of the squeaking and squawking with which so many adolescent males have to contend.) But most boys – who by nature tend to be a little more self-conscious about singing, for some reason – this period of vocal change feels a little like riding a bucking bronco, and too many of them are driven to think that singing is not for them, even if it once gave them pleasure; what once was fun is no longer fun. At least that was the contention of this voice teacher, and she made a pretty persuasive case for it. And she fervently believed that a caring voice teacher just might make an important difference in helping to shepherd a young male through the change in their voice … especially if you happen to be the kind of teacher who can play songs in various keys, since the changing voice is often quite unpredictable and its range will be quite limited. But if you can find songs and choose keys in which the boy can be successful, they are much more apt to keep singing. In other words, the only way we’re going to have more men singing is if we keep our boys singing. So she pleaded with us (that’s not too strong a word) to set aside any hesitancy we might feel and say yes to any and all such requests. And as someone who now pretty much limits himself to teaching male singers, I decided to take her request seriously … and in fact, I do not turn down any request from a young man for voice lessons.
So anyway, this summer has marked a dramatic upswing in the number of private voice students I have … nine new ones joining three I had from before. Stir into the mix the fact that I’ve been working with a couple of Carthage students who are working on an upcoming junior recital and working with a former private student back from college down in Texas, and you can see how I’ve been spending quite a lot of my time. For sure it’s cut into what I had hoped would be time to reorganize both of my studios – once I’d gone in with a steam shovel and cleared them out – and into time that might have been spent in plain old relaxation. But I am not complaining. Teaching voice is one of the central passions of my life; it’s incredibly fun and rewarding for me, and when I’m done teaching a string of four or five lessons in a row, I feel invigorated….energized…. not the least bit depleted. I’m glad as well that the guys I teach are a bracing mix in terms of talent, skill and experience. Some of them have been singing quite a lot, while others are rather new to this whole venture. And while some of them may be with me more at the urging of their parents and/or choir director rather than from their own pleading, I can say that every single one of them seem excited to be there and eager to learn.
And it’s so good for me as a teacher to be working with this array of young guys because each of them is a unique individual. Some seem eager to drink in as much information as they possibly can, while others go glassy- eyed the minute I start to wax rhapsodically about anything. Some are a bit reserved by nature and seem to pull even further into their emotional shells if I get too excited about what they’re doing. Others seem wired to feed off of my energy and enthusiasm, to the point where we’re both bouncing off the walls by the end. For the quieter guys, it’s a matter of coaxing a bigger, more generous sound out of them – while some of the others only seem to operate at Full Steam no matter what (I’ve heard Polly refer to that as “Auto Pilot Super Blast”) and for them I’m trying to help them develop some nuance. A couple of the guys are right in the middle of their voices changing and I’m there as much as anything to help them ride that turbulence. A couple of the guys have only the vaguest notion of how to read music, and for them I reserve some time to address that deficiency as best I can. And several of the guys are already strong musicians and accomplished singers, and it’s more a matter of just building on what’s already in place and helping them achieve greater polish, more solid technique, and deeper expressiveness. Some of these guys are rather shy and a bit ill-at-ease, and I do what I can to bolster their confidence. And a couple of guys are perhaps too confident, a little too certain of their own greatness, and need to realize that there’s much more for them to learn. And what’s maybe most fun for me – and most challenging – is trying to figure out what each of these young men most needs from me. And at the same time, I Gotta Be Me, as the old song or saying goes; I have to teach according to who I am and what my particular gifts are. So making all of that jell together is no small matter. And when it works well, there is nothing more satisfying and exciting.
So I guess I want to take a second to say Thank You to all of the guys who have graced my voice studio this spring and summer. Thank you, Colin and Ryan, for coming back. Thank you, Andrew, for returning from college in Texas to study again. Thank you, Nick and Mike, for living close by so we could spend time working on your upcoming recital. And thank you, Samuel and Mitchell and (another) Andrew and Austin and Josh and William and (yet another) Andrew and Nicholas and Noah for being such an exciting group of newcomers…. the most impressive I’ve ever had. And a big thank you to all of my Carthage students with whom I will resume work in the fall. You are the reason why I am continuing to grow as a teacher- and why teaching gives me more joy than ever.
pictured above: Austin Voyles, one of my new students.