A Bit About Me, Singing Teaching & the Online Experience

I have taught a handful of students privately ever since completing a Bachelor of Music in Voice way back in 1997. Anywhere I have lived (Adelaide; Oxford, UK; Ballarat; Melbourne; Riddells Creek) I have found myself enjoying a bespoke and specialised studio with a small number of curious, earnest, brave and talented singers. These wonderful, creative souls have mostly been adults and the lessons have been a source of great joy for both myself and those students.  Especially at times when I was employed mostly as a speech pathologist.  It's a privilege to share in the journey of improvement with fellow music lovers and help people acquire the new skills they need to thrive musically. Rather than trot out more details, if you are interested, click here for my Singing Teacher Resume 

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Since having children, finding the appropriate times and space to conduct professional lessons privately in the family home has presented significant challenges. A combination of my rugrats growing up a little (as they tend to do!), and having conducted most of my Master of Music Studies in 2020, i.e., the year of the online alternative, has led to my embracing of online lessons. I enjoyed a few face-to-face lessons with my Faculty of Music teacher, working on classical singing, before all private voice lessons across the state were stopped. The option was move online or stop. We were all new to it. I was suddenly teaching my school students online and also learning online as a student, courtesy of my graduate practical studies. It was a year of enormous classical singing growth for me and enormous musical growth for my own students- an huge surprise to me was discovering that the online delivery was not a hindrance to skill acquisition. In fact it offered some benefits in the actual learning space as well as convenience (e.g., speed of interaction and turntaking slowed a little offering processing time, feedback occurred AFTER events which latest research shows is far more effective at influencing future attempts than a teacher prompting for change in situ, lessons could be recorded and watched later for more accurate reflection and analysis, etc). 

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So to potential students, if you really love music and are enthusiastic about improving, don't hesitate to give it a go. For adults in particular, the online forum means a freedom to incorporate learning goals into your life with more ease than before. You can continue your musical learning journey when you are on a conference in a hotel, without getting in a babysitter in whilst you drive off to your lesson,  whilst you are isolating, or whilst you are on holidays anywhere in the world (in the future of course). 

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Face to face engagement is not gone of course! Several times a year I organise performance opportunities at a local venue, and from time to time I offer students the option to change their Tuesday online lesson for a weekend lesson at my home. (This will be on weekends when husband bass player is not away for gigs and grandparents are around for a bit of  happy kiddy caring.) There is no onus to accept offer if not convenient.

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