The Teacher’s Guide To Singing

We asked experienced singing teachers for their top tips about helping students to achieve their best. The result is this handy resource for singing teachers preparing candidates for exams or simply looking for ways to improve their teaching practice. 

This guide features detailed advice on:

1. OVERCOMING CHALLENGES
   What is the biggest challenge for singing teachers? How do you overcome this challenge?
2. MAKING WARM-UPS EFFECTIVE
   Describe your most effective singing warm-up
3. CHOOSING REPERTOIRE FOR BEGINNERS
   What repertoire would you use with a new Grade 1 singing student?
4. PREPARING FOR TECHNICAL EXERCISES
   How do you prepare candidates for the technical exercises in an exam?
5. PREPARING CANDIDATES FOR EXAMS
   What advice do you give to students when they are preparing for a graded singing exam?

What singing teachers told us

Reading through over 15,000 words of responses, we were treated to a range of advice. What really stood out was not only the variety of tips but also the consensus of fundamental points. While teachers would agree on the most important elements of great singing teaching, they would implement the approach in a number of different ways.

This allowed us to group the advice into themes, making it easy to embed into your existing practice. Are you using folk songs as repertoire for beginners? So are lots of other teachers – there’s plenty of advice here. Need to extend your range of semi-occluded warm-ups? A number of approaches can be found in this resource.

You’ll find plenty of ideas you can use right away and a number of wider strategies that can expand your approach to teaching.

Using this guide

‘The Teacher’s Guide to Singing’ is divided into five sections – one for each of the questions we asked teachers. Dip into the advice and find ideas that will work for you and your students.

We would recommend taking one idea and trying it out for yourself first; ensure you’re confident with this new technique before trying another and building up your bank of resources.

Treat this guide as a number of ways to gradually fine-tune your practice – not a full-scale makeover.