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Well, Lorelei is so right that the teacher is so very impt. Our S started in 9th grade with his first voice teacher after just doing his middle school choir for three years and church children's choir for four years. The first teacher was a good friend who helped get him over some stumbling blocks that helped quite a lot with All State Choir auditions at the high school level, but after two years she had to quit teaching for personal reasons.
For various reasons it took a year to find S's current teacher, a man (no gender arguments here, just sayin'). The new teacher is a godsend. Kind of like finding a pair of shoes that fit so great you didn't realize your old shoes didn't fit until you get the new ones!
Well, S is so immersed in his choir world that he wants to study choral conducting and teach, so he's auditioning for music ed. Which is great, to be sure. BUT, the current teacher told me in a parent conference that he wished he'd had S in his studio since 9th grade, because he did not get the training he should have had with the other teacher. Something about phrasing, and a couple other things I don't understand. Apparently, the current teacher thinks if S was trying to do straight vocal performance or opera, he might not pass the audition, but he should be fine for music ed. The current teacher says S learns really quick and has a great ear, and thinks if he'd had S for 4 years instead of just one, that S could pass any audition anywhere.
So, here we are. Sometimes I guess we find out about our kid's talent too late (?) to do anything about it. Or maybe we actually do the right thing stumbling in the dark, because our S doesn't want to be the star on the stage, but the great teacher guiding the classroom (at least that's what he told my mother!)
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