AIRS 3rd Annual Conference: 2011
Title: What do students expect from a singing lesson?
Authors: Jaan Ross and Vaike Kiik-Salupere
Presentation format: Short oral Sub-themes: 2.2 Formal training of singing
A successful singing lesson requires coordinated efforts from the three parties involved: student, teacher,
and coach. Results of a survey are reported, where 32 originally developed statements were rated on a 5point Likert scale by high school students, university students, and professional singers of an opera choir.
The statements were related to students’ expectations of their teacher and coach during individual singing
lessons. Participants were also able to add their own comments to the questionnaire. One-way ANOVA
showed a difference of high school students in comparison with the other two groups. Analysis of
responses to the survey demonstrated that (a) the relationship between the teacher, student and coach
should be based on partnership, (b) the teacher should be positively minded, have professional skills and
up-to-date knowledge, and be able to inspire the student, (c) the coach’s abilities and skills should be at a
sufficiently high level high level, (d) in addition to technical proficiency, the teacher should also develop
psychological skills of students helping them to cope with a stress as professional singers. In their free
comments to the questionnaire, the five most popular phrases used by respondents turned out to be (1)
support of efforts [of the student], (2) understanding, (3) mutual trust, (4) [teacher as] the creator of
atmosphere, and (5) positive attitude. Teachers’ nervousness and irritability were described by students as
the qualities that should be ruled out in a lesson. Since preparation of students is to a large extent similar in
all areas of musicianship, students’ expectations of vocal teachers and coaches are generally expected to be
valid also in other fields of training musicians as well. From an even wider perspective, the issues of
student-teacher interaction are expected to overlap in all areas that involve learning.
Bios
Jaan Ross, studied at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre and received his equivalent of M.A. in
musicology cum laude in 1980. Later he studied at the Moscow P.I. Tchaikovsky Conservatory and
obtained his Ph.D. in musicology at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, Vilnius, in 1988. In
1992, he obtained another Ph.D. in psychology at the Abo Academy University, Turku, Finland. His
primary research field has been the relationship between music and language, in particular between sounds
of music and speech. He is the author of a few monographs or textbooks published in English, Russian or
Estonian. In 2003 he was elected a member of the Estonian Academy of Sciences and in 2009 a member of
the Executive Council of the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music (ESCOM). He is a
member of editorial board of a number of scholarly journals, including Musicae Scientiae, Journal of
Interdisciplinary Music Studies and Proceedings of the Estonian Academy of Sciences. He has translated
into Estonian or edited translations of books by John Sloboda, Johan Sundberg and Nicholas Cook .
Vaike Kiik-Salupere, obtained her equivalent of M.A. from the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre
in voice studies. Between 1999 and 2005 she performed as a soloist on stage of the Estonian National
Opera. Thereafter she received a M.A. in social sciences from Tallinn University. Currently she is a
doctoral student at the Institute of Educational Sciences of Tallinn University. She also works as a part-time
lecturer at the Institute of Fine Arts of the same university. Her doctoral thesis focuses on problems of
voice teaching, in particular on expectations students may have with respect to vocal tuition, including
preparation of how to cope with stress when performing on stage. Since 2009, she is a member of the
International Society for Music Education (ISME). She has presented a number of papers on international
conferences and a few articles in international peer-reviewed journals or books.