If I had ever knew that...

Just as I mentioned in my first entry that I would like to talk about things that hardly anyone mentioned me during my singing studies.

The first thing I could name here is this: if your voice changes, your personality and/or behaviour changes and vice-versa. The main problem of singing education nowadays that most of singing teachers and conservatories and even professional ensembles and artists are considering the human voice as an instrument that similar to a violin or a piano. That wouldn't much of a problem, but they are treating these "human instruments" as they would never treat a violin, a piano or any other musical instrument - the treatment very often could be described as smashing it with a hammer and expecting gratefulness for it from the singer.
Singing education nowadays never talk about how destructive it can be if you stick with imitating your singing teacher (for the record: I'm not saying that imitation your teacher is a bad thing, because it is a way of learning and an important step in the development of the voice, but you cannot get stuck in it!). They also not mention how important it is to become as independent as possible, aside from a very few exceptions, and feel yourself lucky if your teacher not only encourages you to do so, but also bears with your kicks towards freedom.

Why am I saying this? Well, believe or not, as a singing teacher you are far more responsible for your pupils than any instrumental teacher. Lajos Szamosi (notice: Hungarian singing pedagogue, the developer of the approach to freedom in singing; for more info about the approach see link, but I will quote him quite often since his studies and publications made a huge impact on my way of thinking) in one of his publication says (I'm paraphrasing from the original Hungarian): "To get someone to free singing is therefore not a musical task but personal, psychological task and problem, because there is a deep connection between the freedom in singing and one's personal, inner freedom. Only the material we use on the pedagogical way is musical."
Do you know the moments when you read two simple sentences and then you have this "aha!"-experience? I had exactly this thing after I've read this. I mean, I was busy with practising all sorts of scales and was stressing myself with acrobatic excercises and then you just figure out that you've been way too harsh towards yourself as a person and you tried to "treat your instrument with a hammer". I would add to this something that Elizabeth Schwarzkopf said at a masterclass: "Singers have to work much more, because they are the instrument. You can always buy a new violin when it's broken, a flute, or whatever... but NOT the voice! The human being is the instrument. And that's why I would say, that singing is something very essential."
So... If the human being is the instrument itself, you cannot seperate the mental-emotional part of this instrument. Letting a singer (pupil or professional) torture himself or herself with self-hatred is just simply wrong, but in a way it is so typical in our chaotic world. Singers are refined human beings, working on their whole "equipment" throughout their whole life (until death, even if they are not active performers in the last years of their life). Even funnier: if you begin to focus more on getting know yourself better and love yourself more, you will be just really unable to avoid radical development. Caution! The people around you (family, friends, your significant other) may complain, but since you are in the middle of a process don't apologize and don't stop in the middle of the process, but tell them to bear with your new You a bit longer and don't regret anything. Btw, this is the reason it is like hell to date a singer... :))

And finally just a fun fact: hiring singers in earlier centuries (around 15th-17th centuries) were always more expensive than hiring instrumentalists. This (of course) doesn't make instrumentalists worth less than singers, it's just a historical fact... And just a +1 a fact that none of any instrumentalist will become a fine musician if he/she doesn't like to sing (chill out, you don't have to be a soloist...).

So bottom line: don't be afraid of change. It is normal and natural - and you don't have to be a singer to welcome the idea of change :))