Next week my students will be coached by another voice teacher. It's exciting for me as an educator to watch and learn as someone else works with my students. Not only does it reinforce my own teaching ability but it reinforces the students knowledge of their voice as well. Coaching is great for all involved. We all get new tricks to add to our singing bags and for me my teaching bag.
Coaching in my opinion is necessary. As a teacher, my ear can become immune to problems when I have been working with a student for several years. We need a fresh set of ears and eyes to come in and evaluate, sound, posture, breathing, etc. Coaching will give students new vision to the same problems they have been dealing with for a long time. It can give us a new way of thinking about how to get the sound we desire just by using the mind and thinking about it differently.
Students often feel excited about practicing again after a coaching session. It can be a bit of a renewal to their practicing/nonpracticing habits. We all get stuck in a routine and need something new to help us continue with our desires to get better. Coaching can do that for someone who feels stuck or just not in love with lessons anymore.
Coaching helps students make new goals and ways to obtain the ones they already have. When a coach works with someone new they often start by asking what they like about their voice. They ask all sorts of questions about how that student feels about their voice, strenghts and weaknesses. This helps the coach and student decide on a goal or set of goals. It's like an equation, here is the problem, and here is the solution.
Coaching will work when students work with the tools and towards the goals they have set. Here's to a new year and a new prespective on singing.
