10 Simple Ways to Get More Out of Your Voice Lessons

10 Simple Ways to Get More Out of Your Voice Lessons

By Corie Auger 

Want to get more out of your weekly voice lessons? Ever feel like you’re having the same lesson, week after week? Read on for a few simple tips to make sure you’re getting the most out of your time with your teacher.

•  Practice every day for at least 30 minutes.

When you practice, you reinforce techniques you work on with your teacher in your lesson. Practicing consistently allows you to gain coordination and improve upon your abilities each week. Without consistent practice, you’ll likely end up having the same lesson you had last week.

• Arrive already warmed up.

Coming into your lesson already having sung and warmed the voice up allows you and your teacher to dive right in to any technical exercises and repertoire without wasting any time.

• If you don’t already know how, learn to read music.

Reading music can feel like learning a new language. It takes time, patience, and lots of practice, but once you begin to read music, you will learn new repertoire much more quickly and accurately. Ask your teacher to help you learn how!

• Have new music learned before you go to your lesson.

While your teacher might help you break down a passage you are having difficulty with if the rhythm is tricky or the pitches are seemingly disjointed, having them teach you the melody is not an efficient use of your lesson time. Only after you have put in the initial time to learn your music can your teacher help you explore paths to vocal freedom. If you’re still shaky on words, pitches, or rhythms, you will be too focused on those things to be able to find vocal freedom.

• Record your lesson.

Have a smart phone? Start up the voice recorder app! If you don’t have one, you might look into obtaining a cheap, portable recording device to record your lessons with. If you record your lessons, you can listen to it over the next week to not only remember exercises you worked on, but to hear the different sounds you made to help you recreate them in your own practice.

• Keep a lesson & practice journal.

As you listen to your lesson on your recording device, take notes! What exercises did you do? What differences in sound did you hear? What did you like? Then as you practice, you can re-visit these exercises. When you practice, write down anything you find that is particularly helpful or difficult – these are the things to share with your teacher during lesson!

• Have a goal.

Go into your lesson with an idea of what you’d like to accomplish that day. For example: “My tone always gets really breathy when I sing this particular passage of my repertoire, so today I’d like to work on making the tone a little clearer.” Your goal could also cover a broad spectrum: “Today I’d like to sing with energy.” Don’t have a goal in mind? Ask your teacher! This goal will help give your lesson focus.

• Be organized with your materials.

Have your music hole punched in a 3-ring binder. Bring a pencil so you can mark your music. Have a water bottle handy. These may seem like small details, but I can’t tell you how many minutes students waste during their lessons fishing to get the pages of their music in the right order or looking for a pencil.

• Keep a spirit of adventure about you.

Your teacher might ask you to try new things, make unfamiliar sounds, and expand your comfort zone. Embrace these new, different sounds and experiences with enthusiasm, and understand that only by stretching our boundaries are we capable of growth.

• See #1.