Young Voices

In recent years, there has been an increase in the demand for private voice lessons for pre-teens. Voice teachers are often faced with the necessity of making a decision about whether to accept singers of this age into their studios.

There are compelling arguments for and against taking on students of this age. The most powerful argument against taking on such students is that the voice is not yet developed, and the student's time could be better used on other activities, such as singing in a children's choir, and taking piano lessons, both of which will probably develop musicianship faster than private voice lessons will. Also, if the lessons are not very carefully conducted, there is the danger of straining the child's voice, leading to (sometimes permanent) vocal damage and frustration with singing and music on the part of the child.

The most-often heard argument for training children privately is that many children are already involved with musical theatre, in which their voices are already being challenged by busy rehearsal schedules and by singing music which is vocally demanding.

I have found the following guidelines to be helpful in training pre-teens:

	As with any other student, take care to emphasize correct posture and breathing from the very beginning.
	Systematic exercises for developing vocal technique should be followed. For young students I use the simplest exercises in the different categories, except sostenuto, from the book, The Structure of Singing, by Richard Miller.
	Although some young students are exclusively interested in musical theatre, I almost always assign folk songs or simple classical songs to them as well. I find that, if I do not do this, the development of the voice tends to be seriously retarded. Some books I use with pre-teen singers are: Kids' Broadway Songbook, edited by Louise Lerch Solos from Musicals for Kids Popular Solos for Young Singers Folk Songs for Solo Singers, edited by Jay Althouse, published by Hal Leonard (available in three volumes, for medium high and medium low voice) 36 Solos for Young Singers, edited by Joan Boytim
	Keep lesson times short. Thirty minutes is a good length of time.
	Encourage the student to take keyboard lessons, and to participate in a choir or voice class to learn musicianship and gain performance skills.
	Although I encourage all students to bring tape recorders to their lessons to tape the instruction and their songs, I also endeavor to teach them some of the skills needed for reading music, which I find has been sadly neglected in many public schools.
	Although many music books come with CD recordings of accompaniments or performances with singers, these pose some problems: first, the student is locked into the accompanist's tempo, and may thus learn to perform mechanically rather than musically; and, second, teachers may not want their students to emulate some of the performances by singers on these CD's. For these reasons, I usually have the student buy the book separately, if it is available, and record the lesson where they and/or the teacher are singing the song.
	If a student does not know the song and cannot read music, I usually play and sing the song, then ask the student to sing along with me, and the let them sing it by themselves as soon as possible.
	If the student is already involved in musical theatre, he or she should be educated about vocal health, including the importance of rest.
	Care should be taken not to overtax the changing male voice. Some authorities suggest that when their voices start to change, boys stop voice lessons and concentrate on some other instrument, such as keyboard, instead, until the voice change is complete.
	With students this age, their are sometimes issues of discipline. I try to be firm but patient in my approach. Children need to be taught that work can be fun, and that concentration and effort are required if a good result is to be expected.