Visualization
In home voice lessons are unique. Unique because although there are other instruments where the equipment is not entirely visible, a singer’s equipment-the voice box, vocal cords, and the lungs-is completely internal. This makes teaching private voice lessons to students much more intuitive and theoretical than most instrumental lessons. The teacher must essentially guess what is going on inside a student’s body. For example, I can see every part of cello student’s equipment, so when my student has weak sound, I can look at their hands or positioning and see the weird habits that are causing the problem. During in home voice lessons, the teacher presents a slew of mental techniques and analogies to the student in order to encourage their self-analysis. One of the most powerful mental techniques is visualization.
I grew up hearing “visualize it!” from my mom all the time, although never in relation to music. She swore by her visualization board, which is just poster board covered in cars, vacations, 6-pack abs etc. She insisted if you visualized your goal, you could make it happen. This same technique works for musical goals! For every performance based skill, whether it is piano or golf or ice skating, visualization is the key to jumping the hurdles which inevitably face all performers. Imagine your goal in mind and picture yourself pulling it off, then try for it.
Don’t say the ‘C’ word – Can’t
The most effective way I’ve found to use visualization is when a performer hits a brick wall in their practice. When a student thinks of a certain area of their music as impossible or something they “can’t do” (I hate that phrase!), it takes magic tricks to pull them out of that funk. The negative mentality can be much more inhibiting than the difficulty of the technique they are trying to work on. Voice lessons at home allow for the voice student to overcome these kinds of barriers by closing their eyes, and really seeing themselves performing that difficult passage.
It can be difficult to sell these kinds of processes to the student when they don’t believe in their power, but it’s important to communicate thoroughly. It is always a shame when a talented young musician is held back because a teacher gave up on teaching a tricky subject. It’s our job to sell useful techniques, and it’s their job to try, but visualization only works if the student can believe it themselves. If they can believe that it’s possible, overcome shyness, and then give it a real shot, then anything is possible. Most kids jump at the chance to use their imagination during a lesson. For one, it’s the one place they can go where we as teachers
can’t critique them. They may actually be visualizing unicorns and rainbows, but if you can get them to go there and then somehow convince them to picture themselves performing the technique, you have made significant progress with that student.
Students have the power
These imagination techniques are particularly important to the voice student because sometimes it is so hard to determine what kind of sensations are occurring in the student’s body. We can always ask and demonstrate but it’s impossible to communicate the sensation of feelings to a student in a way that will immediately flip a switch for them. Instead, this method puts the teaching and learning much more in their hands, challenging them to see themselves as that amazing musician they want to be.
I find that my students hold onto memories of times when I asked them to do something out of the box and creative in order to teach them something. For the most part, I like to stick to the plan and teach them what has always worked, so they grow up to be solid musicians with a good foundation, but when you surprise them with something that seems a little weird, and if they are successful at it, then it’s a win-win for teacher and student.
Image #1 Sourced from (http://www.f1online.pro/en/image-details/573233.html)
Image #2 Sourced from (www.makingitinmusic.net)
