Voice Teacher Checklist

The 'look' of a studio is a mix of personal style and business acumen.
The value of a studio is its teaching.

The following do not effect or predict teaching skills:

1. Fancy Equipment

The worst teacher I visited used the most equipment. The best used the next most equipment. The quantity and quality of the equipment does not reflect the quality of the teaching.
I have a piano, CD recorder-burner, karaoke equipment, an amp/mixer, a piece which allows me to speed up a song without changing pitch and change the pitch without changing speed, and microphones.

2. Studio Location (home or separate office)

Of the eight teachers I have studied with, the very best teacher, one of the best, and the two worst taught in their homes. One excellent teacher and one mediocre one taught in studios. And two other mediocre teachers taught in universities. Where a teacher teaches is irrelevant to the quality of the teaching.
I teach out of my home.

3. Teacher's Piano Skills

A teacher's piano skills reflect how much piano we have studied and kept current, not our knowledge about training voices. Two of my best teachers were excellent pianists (however one rarely used this skill during our lessons). So were two of the worst. Some voice teachers are pianists who find they can accompany people and say a few comments that pass as a voice lesson. These are accompanists, not voice teachers. If you want to train the voice, go to a voice teacher.
I played piano for many years as a youth and enjoy faded skills. The knowledge of music remains.

4. Front Office Help

None of my teachers, excellent, mediocre or bad, had front office help. If teachers are picking up the phone during lessons, this can impact the quality of a lesson. Otherwise, the front office help is irrelevant to the quality of the lesson. It is a reflection of our modern craving for instant service, whatever the quality.
I do not pick up the phone during lessons and do not have front office help.

The following does not predict the best value of your lessons:

1. Price

By far the best 'deals' I have had on lessons (best learning to expense ratio) was with a teacher who charged $100/hour. The next best 'deal' was $150/ hour. (The first teacher was probably 3 times the value of the second.) The next best was $120/hour. Next best was around $45/hour. The teacher with the worst learning-to-expense ration charged about $90/hour. Next worst was about $50 hour. And so on. If you select a teacher based on rates - either high or low - you are using a misleading criteria.
I base the price of my lessons on being a great value when compared to my best teachers. For the same money, I expect my students to learn the same or more.

The following influences, but does not predict a teacher's ability to teach:

1. Credentials

There is no formal test voice teaches have to undergo. Somewhere, somehow, we learn what we pass on or inflict on our students.

Some university-trained teachers are excellent. Others teach the same bad opera their teachers learned from other bad teachers at other universities. My university teachers were mediocre at best. The degree means the person applied themselves to learn a lot about music. This does not mean that we did or did not learn valuable teaching skills. The Music Teachers Associations are largely collections of University trained teachers.
I have a Masters Degree in Music Performance. Afterwards, I studied about 9 years with meisters in opera, musical theater, cabaret, pop, and soul.

There are other programs for teaching teachers. These have the advantage of knowing the teacher has a certain amount of teaching training. This does not mean the person is a gifted teacher or that his background has much depth. It also does not mean every technique this teacher uses is the best available to accomplish the task. Some of these teachers are also excellent.
I taught one year as a first level Speech Level teacher, after 9 years of previous teaching, and found the system to have many benefits, but also some disadvantages and limitations which did not meet my needs. To my knowledge it is the best systematic voice teacher training system out there. This does not mean teachers from this system are the best, but they shouldn't be the worst.

The following best predicts a student's success in finding the right teacher:

1. The willingness to keep looking until a student finds the right teacher.

The biggest mistake I kept making in my singing journey was to try one mediocre or bad teacher and then quit or stick with him/her. There were other excellent teachers nearby; I just did not pursue finding them until years into my training.

2. The ability to recognize great teaching.

Forget the hype. The look. The accompaniment. The ' buzz'. Are you learning mastery of your voice?

3. Knowing what you want.

It is difficult to find the right people to get you from here to there if you don't know where 'there' is.

I hope this has been helpful.
Good luck, and much joy on your singing journey.

To book lessons or performances from Merrill Leffmann,
call 480-348-1607 or e-mail info@mlvoice.net