Here's how you can effectively give feedback to singers during a vocal coaching session.

🎵 Crafting Vocal Excellence: Honesty & Growth 🎵 Effective feedback in vocal coaching demands unwavering honesty, tailored to each singer's unique needs. Honesty isn't criticism; it's a roadmap to excellence. Embracing challenges as opportunities for growth is pivotal. Problems aren't permanent; they're pathways to mastery. Rehearsal and accountability are key, shaping new thinking patterns for success. With dedication and a growth mindset, every singer can transcend obstacles and sculpt vocal greatness.

A coach or teacher has to listen to very specific abilities in the voice and music. To remain focused on the primary concerns, the coach has to ask themselves questions why they’re listening. Asking questions prevents the coaching session from becoming all about the coach and what they want to prove, or general cheerleading, which is a disservice to the singer. The coach has to focus on how the singer is singing, and how they are responding to the music ( groove, phrasing, inflection, connection in lower voice, ease of transition to upper voice, degree of loudness, for examples.)

Respond to what you hear, address what you hear first and work with the tools you have to bring about a better result. Establish if they are able to make those changes or if they need step by step tools to get there. You pinpointing what they need to work on is proof that you are listening. That's your job so it's expected of you.

Certainly, listening plays an important and influential role in the development of knowledge and intellectual property in general. Listening to selected models according to musical specialization also has a high positive impact.

Use categories to assess the student and let them know about them long before the assessment to give them a fair chance to prepare and practise. Remember to be gentle and state facts not your opinions and likeness. Don’t use words, like: “I don’t like”. Start always from positives and genuinely acknowledge them. Assessment can be motivating, if structured well. Ideally, after the assessment, prepare execution plan for fixing the issues, and a clear path with exercises to follow for your student.

Yes, be specific, but theses suggestions are very general! Specific would be focusing on the one thing that will immediately creat an experience for the singer that will change their singing in a positive way. If there’s time you can do 2-3 things. For example, how is the transition from lower to upper voice, how is the phrasing, is the singer “gasping” for the inhale, is the singer connected to the groove….

La sophrologie s'intègre parfaitement au coaching vocal : lors des séances de sophro, j'intègre les différents types de respiration, la gestion des tensions, la coordination pneumo-phonique, l'enrichissement du timbre... Ces séances ont de très bons résultats car elles posent la technique en état sophroliminal qui abaisse les résistances liées au stress.

I have created a handout to remind students on points to work on, both technical points - adding diction and pronunciation to the list above - and also ways to work on interpretation, especially speaking and singing the words with expression. I also like asking students how they can solve any problems they notice they have, to reinforce their own ability to consolidate knowledge they might have but did not apply at this moment.

Students are individuals, with their own personalities and unique voices. While general comments about aspects of technique and so on can be helpful to give an overview to the student, we always need to be addressing the individual needs of each one.

Prefiro sempre partir do desejo, do gosto do cantor, e ir apontando ajustes que tragam resultados mais assertivos e confortáveis para sua saúde vocal.

One thing I’ve also found helpful is when they are tone deaf. They need to be told in the most tactful way. I love the example of Bob Dylan who wrote an unbelievable amount of songs along with his very let’s call it “unique” voice which got his point across. If you can see that the person you are teaching is talented in one area but maybe not another- it’s our unsaid duty to steer them in the right direction and not give them false hope. This would only come after studying their voice to extent.

Constructive criticism is a part of what I call "personal achievement" careers such as being a singer. The student has to learn early on that the teacher is analyzing what they are producing. And the student has to take this to heart and make it happen for themselves. The teacher can instruct but only the student can make it happen for themselves. Nobody can do it for you. The real world is much harsher and won't care about your feelings. Critique is part of every career. Use it to make yourself better and then let it go. It's not who you are. It's an instruction manual to help you achieve better.

I find it helpful to encourage students (and myself) to take the emotional part out of criticism. They are just facts, and there are tools to improve in whatever area this might concern - e.g. I have had some success with people who were told they are tone deaf but simply take longer to process the pitch from hearing it to producing it. Often, singing out of tune is related to technique, as well. Another way to work on that particular problem is to teach musical patterns - a bit like teaching sight singing. Performances that feel like a failure are harder for us to assess in a factual way, and working on nerves that may have contributed to the “failure” are harder to deal with. (Read Eloise Ristad “A Soprano on her head” for ideas!

Always ask the singer for questions along the way and st the end of the session, but too much conversation distracts from the work at hand. Avoid allowing a singer to vent during a session. Encourage this kind of questioning and discussion before or after the coaching but not during

Le coaching vocal implique beaucoup les clients, notamment sur les plans émotionnels : ce n'est pas qu'un travail technique. "La voix est le reflet de l'âme" , il est donc capital qu'une belle relation de confiance s'instaure entre le coach et son client pour que celui-ci soit à l'aise. Tout coach a pour mission d'écouter son client, de clarifier ses demandes, de lever ses doutes et ses freins, de valoriser ses points forts, de lui permettre de se réaligner avec ses valeurs. La démarche est la même en coaching vocal, avec de la technique et une approche de l'identité vocale.

Conversation is essential, but keeping focus is equally important. Listening to questions helps create clarity - increasing motivation for the student to work on the issue - but it also provides clarity for the coach. Not only will I understand what has been received by the student, avoiding misunderstandings, but I too keep my mind sharp on the methods I use, perhaps I will refine them (in my reflection after the lesson), and if one method has not worked I might provide another, instead.

Questions need to be answered, though at times, the questions are a distraction during a lesson, and what is needed is for the student to discover the answer through doing, and afterward examining what they learned from that experience.

Paulo Freire is famous for suggesting that the teacher can learn as much from the student as the student can from the teacher. Beyond what we hear in their voice and their responses to our feedback and inquiry, questions are our gateway into what the students are curious about and where they are in their journey as vocalists. By encouraging their questions, we are centering their interests and goals.

Apart from practical solutions (see the handouts I mentioned above) I also add that, in terms of technique, things should feel easier on the voice with the right approach. So after the student has successfully performed an exercise or improved a passage of their repertoire, I will ask them “How did that feel?” In time, the sensation together with audio perception will provide feedback the student to listen to themselves more successfully and make those changes with little prompting.

Agreed that immediate solutions are needed. Many things will take longer to develop, but an immediate sense of the direction to be taken towards those goals is vital.

I come to each lesson with a topic that I would like to focus on with my student. This is usually something that has come up in our last lesson that they communicated they would like to work on, or it is something that I feel compelled to focus on due to their last lesson. My students seem to appreciate this approach, and I find that this follow up and fore thought leads to a much more productive and meaningful lesson!