How to Get An A in Voice Lessons

Every semester, I receive Course Evaluations, in which my students have a chance to offer me feedback on the course. This year, as always, I have gained insight into my teaching and my syllabus. So I wanted to take a moment to address everyone's favorite topic: GRADING!

First, let me say that assigning grades for your work in voice lessons is possible the most difficult part of my job, and one that I take very seriously. It is a major difference between my Private Studio teaching and my University teaching. Hopefully, I can give you a little glance inside my head with what I'm about to write. 

• WHAT IS AN A? According to Steinhardt's Grading Policy, an A is awarded for Excellent work. An A- is also Excellent. B and B- are Good, and C and C- are Satisfactory. I work on the assumption that each of you has come to NYU because you want to be a performer who is Excellent, Above Average, even Spectacular. After NYU, you want to make a living performing or teaching music in some way, and so YES, I hold a high standard for an A in my class. 
• CREDITS: Why are voice lessons 3-4 credits, when you only get one hour in class each week? This credit is given to account for the individual practice time required by this course. I expect you to spend one hour a day in individual practice, to best facilitate your vocal progress. THE TOUGH PART is that I must then estimate from your performance in lessons whether you are meeting this requirement. Thus, when you come to a lesson making the same mistakes you made the week before, or with the same pieces unlearned or unmemorized, I can guess that you have not been meeting the expectation for practicing. 
• REPERTOIRE: 
• I select your repertoire based on a number of factors: voice type, range, tessitura, language requirements, momentum, rhythmic difficulty, etc. This is a major difference between University teaching and Private teaching. In Private teaching, I may make suggestions, but allow the student to select repertoire that want to sing. In University teaching, I am putting your Vocal Development first. Not all of the music you work on at NYU will you use forever, though I do make an effort to assign repertoire that is appropriate for your voice type and character type. But SOME of these pieces are serving primarily as EXERCISES to strengthen your voice!
• Each semester, I assign you a number of pieces that I believe you can learn in 15 weeks. If I have assigned you 7 pieces, I believe that within 15 weeks, practicing 5 hours a week, you should be able to learn and memorize 7 pieces. Should some of them prove more challenging, I can see that, and will continue to look for IMPROVEMENT over completion. However, if you have yet to obtain the sheet music for some pieces, I will assume that you are not working on them in your practice time. I'm not grading you on the number of songs you learn in a semester. I'm grading you on the progress you make on 7 or 8 songs you've been assigned. If you learn all of those and we've worked on them, we can have fun and move on to more music! 
• MUSICIANSHIP: I believe that as your Voice Teacher at NYU, I am not only responsible for your Vocal Development, but for your development as a Musician. There will be times when you will be emailed cuts the night before a callback and it will be expected that you have them memorized within 12 hours. Your callback will go immeasurably better if you have the musicianship skills to learn music quickly and accurately. This will set you apart from all of the other talented people with whom you'll be competing for jobs!

IF YOU LEARN ONLY ONE THING FROM ME, I HOPE IT'S THIS:

• INDIVIDUAL PRACTICE TIME: Like Meditation, or Working Out, or Studying, or any activity that is strengthened by regular time put in, practice time is HARD! Pianists have been practicing in regular daily increments since they were 5 years old. Violinists since they were 3. As singers, many of us didn't start voice lessons until High School or College. And we struggle to plan that into our schedules. And that's why Singers are notoriously ridiculed for being poor musicians, or for resting on talent. I'm here to tell you that practice time is what is going to separate you from the crowd. If you have a vocal technique that you can rely on because you exercise it daily, you are like an elite Olympic athlete who knows her body will be there to help her run the race. I like to look at my week on Sunday and plan out when my practice times will be and write them into my calendar. Then stick to the plan! "Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail." 
• How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, Practice, Practice.