12 qualities of bad voice teaching

How to know when to find another teacher

The competent voice teacher is simultaneously a psychologist, physician, acoustician, musician and sports coach. This is a very broad and rare set of skills.

A high degree of both physical and emotional empathy also proves quite indispensable; one must understand why a singer may have tried a particular failed strategy and how they felt physically leading into that decision.

The teacher must also be a serious person capable of raw honesty, even when it hurts. It should be understood that, when the student can do better, better is always expected and there is no place for randomness or sloppiness. That is what the student is paying for. It is easy to be unfalteringly nice, but dishonest. This is in my opinion a form of abuse by neglect; the singer will be much better off discovering that the result was unsatisfactory in the studio rather than when they try out the same thing in their next audition.

Many voice teachers do not fit this description. In my opinion, these teachers, while they may be kind and good people with best intentions, have no business teaching serious singers. 

I have compiled a useful list to help the student determine if they may have a bad teacher. This is not always easy to know. Gaslighting and the intentional creation of emotional dependency are very common in the voice teaching profession. Some voice teachers are more interested in control and power games than doing thorough work. Some are merely there to collect their money without any real investment in the singer’s development or pride in their work. Some are currently working or retired singers who teach what they think they do or did with mixed results, rather than taking the time to improve their knowledge and skill set. Teaching voice is, of course, closely related to singing, but a distinct discipline. It should not be assumed that just because someone was a good, or even extremely successful singer, that they know what they are talking about when it comes to instructing others. Nor should it be assumed that someone with a long list of academic qualifications necessarily knows what they are doing; of the most unhelpful teachers I've come across, several were excellent singers, and more than a couple have had their Phd in vocal pedagogy. You will even find a few famous, big name voice teachers who are perhaps charging quite a bit more than the value of what they actually offer.

It is difficult not to feel upset every time I meet a singer who has been struggling for years with solvable technical issues, all the time having spent a significant sum on a teacher who has not only proved incapable of solving the issues, but often has exacerbated the singer's vocal and mental struggle. In the best case scenario they have just been led in circles. If this article helps just one such singer make a change for the better, it would really be wonderful.

Qualities of a bad voice teacher

1. You have been studying with them for a few months or more and haven't shown any objective improvement (or perhaps have gotten worse).

Everybody goes to a new teacher for a reason. Most of the time, it’s because they believe the new teacher will help them with a particular problem, or polish their technique in a particular direction. (The exception to this is in universities, where people usually change studios because they fell out with their old teacher. Typically, with limited options, the student will just change to the least bad option.)

If you have begun lessons with a new teacher and it has been a few months, you have been consistently applying their exercises and technical ideas and there has been no quantifiable improvement in the expected direction, you should seek other advice.

Even more concerning, if you have regressed in quantifiable terms over that same period it is not “part of the process”. We can accept that technical exaggerations are sometimes necessary for a period of time, but these need to have a clear purpose and demonstrate concrete improvements in the advertized direction.

Everyone will have flat periods with teachers where they seem to not get much better or get better very slowly but, with somebody who knows what they are doing, the first few months should be a time of rapid improvement. If they aren't, stop wasting your money.

2. They blame your current vocal issues on your natural voice or on previous teachers without offering real solutions.

There are no vocal issues which are unsolvable, barring severe vocal damage, which is rare and for which a voice teacher is likely not the best person to consult. If someone is singing in a radically incompatible Fach and that is causing issues, the teacher should notice this. If the issue is technical, it is not just “the natural voice”. No voice on earth needs to be airy, uneven, lacking in resonance or flat.

References to previous teachers should also not feature much in your lessons. We can accept that a previous teacher may have done harm, but in the lesson all that matters is improving the function and sound. Who did what when is totally irrelevant. If the current teacher incessantly criticizes the previous one, it is worth wondering why aren't they spending all that time and energy actually fixing the problems.

3. They can not explain how anatomic function relates to sound, even if they sing well themselves.

This teacher has no idea about function and only refers to sensation, which is only the result of other processes. They don't realize they are doing this, and will often get frustrated at students who aren't able to follow their highly idiosyncratic and simplistic instruction. This teacher will commonly describe very correct and valid sensations, but has no idea how to bring about that result in a student. A teacher doesn't necessarily have to have the anatomical knowledge of a surgeon, but they do have to have an understanding of the basic mechanics of the voice and body in producing sound, or they will be incapable of laying a functional foundation for their students.

Teachers who cannot communicate their process are not teaching; they are providing an internal review of their own singing.

4. They keep saying your singing sounds great, but you are experiencing universally negative feedback in auditions.

Self-evident. The lessons aren’t working but they need your business and are flattering you in the hope that you will keep paying them. Or perhaps they just have a terrible ear and bad taste in singing. Either one means you need to seek another opinion.

(If your teacher is giving you critical feedback in lessons and you are also bombing auditions, that is a different case.)

There is another option here; the teacher insists on vocal and stylistic practices that are rather out of date in a given repertoire. Good technical practices are timeless, but style always evolves over time. Roles often move to different Fächer and even diction practices change. Your teacher should be somewhat aware of this and not stuck in the early 1980s. A teacher may personally prefer a certain sound and style in a particular repertoire, but if agents and theaters don't agree, you will look foolish in your next audition. If a teacher is a great technician and is just a bit out of touch, the least they can do is steer their students toward the appropriate coaches. 

5. They use complex jargon without being able to demonstrate what it means and can't apply it practically to your voice.

This is the most dangerous kind of bad teacher. They disguise their lack of knowledge and ability with technical jargon which they leave mostly unexplained. They may say something like: “You can’t do it like that, because the tension in the arytenoids will be unsustainable at a higher velocity and negate the 2nd formant tuning”. These nonsensical word salads will impress younger students and make them feel as if they have much still to learn, but will embarrass the teacher in front of anybody who knows what they are talking about. They may even say things that are technically correct but just unhelpful and inapplicable to your current needs. If the student hasn't learnt, the teacher hasn't taught. It's their job to make you a better singer, not to impress you.

(This kind of teacher may use the vocabulary of esotericism and mysticism rather than technical language, but it's practically the same thing.)

There is a place in lessons for difficult language and concepts, but they will ideally always be demonstrably applicable to the task at hand.

6. They spend a great deal of the time you're paying for bitching or gossiping about other teachers and singers (and may ask you not to record).

Self-evident. You're paying them for the whole hour; if they are wasting time, they don't respect you enough and don't take your artistic and financial commitment seriously. If what they're saying is worthwhile, it’s worth recording. If it isn't, why are you there?

7. They cannot demonstrate what they mean with their own voice. 

They don't have to be making sounds like Caruso, Pavarotti or Callas, but they do have to be able to back up what they are saying with a quality demonstration. Otherwise why would you listen to them? If a teacher is incapable of realizing the process of building and balancing their own voice to a reasonable level, they are unable to understand that process fully, even if they have said a few helpful things. Strongly correlated to number 5.

8. Technical work consists of scales and arpeggios with no clear or specific functional purpose, or they leave out technical work entirely.

Scales and arpeggios are fine, but singing technique is about improving function and acoustics. If these aren't progressing in a deliberate direction through the exercises, then you have to worry about it in the repertoire, and that’s far from ideal. Teachers who have no understanding of functional exercises are not worth whatever they're charging. (See my previous article on voice building for more on this.)

9. Their standards are subjective and emotional rather than objective when assessing the quality of vocal technique.

They have no objective measures of technical achievement. To them, a sound is either good or bad, but there are no specific reasons as to why. This teacher may dislike or like certain famous singers, but be unable to satisfactorily explain why at a technical level. This is totally fine for a random music-loving member of the public or even a singer, but for a voice teacher more is required. Naturally, all musical performance is to some extent a matter of taste, but a teacher needs their own system of evaluating results with relative objectivity. Total subjectivity is dangerous in pedagogy; if everything is potentially valid, nothing is valid.

10. They are dogmatic and attack or dismiss things outside of their perspective.

It's fine to have a strong opinion and high standards, but you have to have good reasons for your views and some degree of empathy for why singers may make certain choices. If they viciously attack absolutely every singer doing something slightly outside of their system as “wrong” or “bad”, they are too in love with how things ought to be in theory, or perhaps just insecure and jealous of the success of others. A teacher may not teach a particular technical approach, but if a singer is doing it well, that should be acknowledged, despite the teacher maybe disagreeing that this was the best possible way. There is enough negativity and toxicity in the singing world without teachers harshly criticizing every artist, living or dead, in the context of voice lessons. This also encourages a certain level of undesirable exclusivity on the part of students, who can often feel this shared negativity within the studio makes them part of some kind of club.

11. They claim to be the one of the last or only exponents of the true Bel Canto (or other) method.

This teacher frequently refers to a pedagogic lineage (perhaps real, but often imagined or invented) to support their teaching, rather than explaining and showing why they think it's better. This is a classic example of an appeal to authority. A voice teacher should have confidence in their own method and own standards. Something being the fruit of a supposed long lineage of teaching is useless if it doesn’t help you with your problems today.

I am not criticizing historical teaching methods in general or taking issue with deriving modern teaching from traditional ideas. These I find often extremely valid. But if none of a teacher's students are booking gigs and their unique selling point is that their teacher’s teacher studied with Lamperti’s 2nd cousin in Milan a century ago, perhaps they aren’t as much a part of that lineage as they say they are.

12. They are registration absolutists.

This is a weirdly common one for something that is absolutely unambiguous at a functional level. Both chest register and head register are required for the optimal functioning of the vocal folds. This is not really a matter of opinion, but settled voice science and an idea present in pedagogic tradition since the time of the castrati. Yet there are still teachers who are "head voice" evangelists, believing all chest register is harmful and bad. Visiting a teacher like this is a little like going to the doctor and finding out that they believe exercise is unhealthy for the body.

Equally absurd are teachers who boast about the supremacy of the chest register, as if it's all you need for healthy function.

A register is just a vibratory pattern of the vocal folds. No register is inherently healthy or unhealthy. You need balance for the voice to function optimally, regardless of voice type.

These teachers, happily, are less often found than they once were. They have possibly disappeared in tandem with the rise of the Internet; with easy access to millions of recordings demonstrating the consistent use of both registers by almost every singer who was ever any good, register absolutism becomes a fairly ridiculous and untenable position.

If any of the above characteristics describe your teacher, I am fairly confident you have a bad one. Maybe consider taking your business elsewhere.

No one is perfect. Everybody makes mistakes from time to time and maybe gives some advice that, in retrospect, wasn't so great. I've certainly made a few misjudgments in my teaching; I learned a lot from them. However, if you are noticing persistent unprofessional behavior, a negative attitude, a lack of knowledge and a lack of ability, go elsewhere. If you are a professional singer or if you aspire to be a professional singer, your voice and technical skillset are the primary tools of your trade. Your teacher is the person who is supposed to develop your voice and talent to the best of their ability. If they are not competent or genuine in their desire to achieve that goal with you, you don't have the time to waste. The singing world is too competitive. Remember: if you are paying, you are the employer. You get to decide who to hire and who to fire.