i never liked music schools. and i had good reasons for that. when my parents sent me off to one it was a waste of time and money. there was just a large room with two rows of organs, one child sat at each one playing by him- or herself with headphones and about 2 teachers walked around and listened a bit here and there through another pair of headphones. i can’t remember it perfectly because i was 5 years old back then but thinking back this room must have looked like some children-enslaving-manufacturing-something. needless to say it was not efficient at all……..for the kids that is. for the others involved it was great. the parents bought the feeling to do something for their breed and to have them off their backs for a while and the school made money with minimal effort. well, i don’t want to do anybody wrong. my parents really wanted me to learn something, they just didn’t know it was the wrong way. and i knew the school’s owner, he was quite a nice man who honestly believed his school was a good thing…. i got out of there quick because i seemed to be the only one really interested in music, so one of the schoolguys told my parents to get me a private teacher which they did.

the next experience with a music school came about 15 years later. i wrote and recorded some songs together with an american singer/songwriter/vocal teacher who lived in germany and who used to teach at a quite popular singing school in the region. he stopped teaching there shortly before we both met and he gave me two reasons for this decision: 1. a huge drug problem at that school and 2. nobody of the school staff cared about the students. even better: the teachers were told to not teach the students too well so they would need to stay longer. it was a really expensive school that parents had their kids go to in order to impress friends and relatives. ugh!

then a few years later, when i started teaching myself, i talked to some guys at music schools if it would be possible to teach there. but then i decided to stay on my own. it seemed none of them was interested in offering some valuable teaching really. they all wanted to kill as many birds possible with one stone. i simply do not believe it’s possible to teach a group of people to sing at the same time. choirs or background sections are exceptions of course but the single members of those groups need to learn it for themselves first as well. every voice is different. easy as that. you can’t teach 2 or more people simultaneously without sacrificing the very thing teaching is about. it might be possible with instruments if you choose students who are on kind of the same level, this is still not the best way though. but with the voice this is simply impossible. i’ve yet to meet a student who would be a decent match for any other one i had ever before. and that’s where the talking always ended. i wanted to teach one student at a time, they wanted me to teach groups of 2, 3 or even more. end of story… so until today i’m still the private teacher i have been for almost ten years now.

and now the punchline: about 8 years after my last music-school-encounter it seems there is another one ahead.

i’ll keep you informed…….