Adrian R  
Instruments: Voice
Styles: Classical, Jazz, Musical Theater, Opera, Showtunes, Avant-garde

I began teaching during the end of my college years, when an assignment for a pedagogy class on voice included taking on a student for several months and working with them.  I found the experience to be fulfilling and self revealing as to how I understood my own concept of singing.  Since then, I have recently begun teaching a number of students who, thanks to my experiences as a resident artist with an opera company and recent performances with festivals, I feel have more to gain from me. My experience working with many different voice teachers and other professionals have given me a number of concepts I use to help students understand how to use their voice.  My students are free to work on whatever music they choose, while I assign pieces to them designed to engage their instrument correctly and foster a healthy and functional 'form' for singing; such that it would benefit whatever genre or style of music they choose.  

I always begin by figuring out how I can best teach a student by asking them their interests and goals for singing; whether they want to sing jazz or provide vocals for their rock band, or learn to sing classically, etc.  For all students who are atleast in their teens or older, I begin by describing how singing works and talk about the function of the body in singing.  I usually use pictures from anatomy books to help point out the key organs and muscle groups that are engaged in healthy singing, so as to give a visual aid of what we are working to condition for singing. I spend several lessons giving vocal exercises and helping the student learn to breath in a way that is conducive to healthy singing.  As the student begins to practice this over the first few lessons, I choose repertoire (along with whatever they are interested in) that focuses on areas they are doing well in as well as things that challenge their current abilities.