People Who Do Things | #9 Singing Teacher

Today on People Who Do Things we have Emma, a singing teacher! She's trained in American Musical Theatre and is hoping to be in Shows like 'Avenue Q' and 'Fun Home'. Whilst waiting for her big break she's working as a vocal tutor at a school which teaches children pop and rock music, as well as teaching private singing lessons....

Am I right in thinking you're studying at the moment and a singing teacher too? I'm not studying anymore, I left Drama School last July. I started teaching singing a year and a half ago.

What career would you like to pursue with your training in acting? I basically want to be paid for what I love doing which is performing, I'm primarily a singer/actor. One of my other passions is teaching. I'm a bit of a voice geek so any chance to bust out a word like 'sternocleidomastoid' makes my happier than perhaps it should!

When did you know that you wanted to get into Musical Theatre? When I was 9. I have always loved singing but that was when my parents took it a little bit more seriously for me. I started going to Theatre school on a Friday which really helped to build me as a person and a performer. I have distinct memories of putting on the cassette of Les Mis, getting into the dreariest clothes I owned and reenacting the entire score in the lounge, much to my parents delight.

Do you have an actress/singer you aspire to? Or a show you'd love to be in? I adore and possibly worship Imelda Staunton, to me she is a God! I'd kill to be in a musical by Stephen Sondheim. I would also love a chance to play Kate Monster in 'Avenue Q', as well as Medium Allison in 'Fun Home'.

Do you work for a company as a singing teacher or are you freelance? If the latter how do you go about finding students to teach? I work for a company that teaches rock and pop music to 7-18 years olds which keeps me busy 4 days a week and I also teach privately at home. I advertise myself on a website called musicteachers.co.uk and all but one of my students has come from that.

How is a singing lesson structured? I start off with some warm up exercises and then we work our way through a song the student wants to work on.

Do you think everyone can to learn to sing? Or are there some people that are just completely tone deaf, because I think I am! I strongly believe in nature vs nurture. If someone sings something nice at a young age and someone tells them it sounds good of course they'll be encouraged to practice. If someone tells them not to sing, of course they won't work at it! There's an element of natural ability but there are studies that say it takes 10,000 hours or 10 years to become a professional in something so there has to be some hard work along the way.

What's your favourite and least favourite part of your job? I love breakthrough moments with students. They're incredibly exciting and so satisfying for both me and the student. I wish I was doing a bit more performing at the moment, the last 4 months have been very teaching heavy but I'm sure things will pick up soon.

What's your side hustle? Eating, I think that's a hobby as I'm very good at it!

If you hadn't trained in Musical Theatre what career do you think you'd be doing now? Probably a baker, as I love cake.

And the question we all want to know the answer of, what are the perks of the job? It's nice having school holidays off from the rock/pop teaching so I have time to catch up on life. Being able to class Theatre tickets as 'research' in my tax returns is pretty great. It doesn't mean  I save any more but at least it's essential to my career.

A massive thank you to Emma for taking the time to share her job as a singing teacher and I hope you get another performing job asap! I hope you found this interesting and keep tuned for a lot more interviews, I shall be posting a new 'people who do things' every other Sunday, So your next one will be up on Sunday 4th November.

If you're in a job that you love make sure to DM me on Instagram @greatestformofflatteryblog and I can feature you!

KEEP SMILING