The Private Voice Studio Handbook: A Practical Guide to All Aspects of Teaching

One of the most inspiring books I have read in a long time. I read the first 14 chapters in one night and kept reading sections out loud to my husband because there was so much good stuff in there. It gave me so many good ideas that I was able to implement with my voice students immediately. Anyone who is teaching or planning to teach should read this.

Joan Frey Boytim has had a distinguished career as a private voice teacher. Rather than a manual of how to teach singing, this handbook covers more of the logistical concerns about teaching voice -- where and how to establish a studio, how to teach voice students sight reading, how to establish a curriculum approach, organize recitals, and other concerns. Most voice teachers will find this type of manual valuable. This is because while most voice majors study the ins and outs of the instrument and pedagogical approaches, very little focus is placed in education on how to organize one's teaching ability into an effective vocation. Boytim's suggestions, while simple at times, can be quite helpful. For instance, when first building a studio, Boytim suggests one teach beginning piano (or any other instrument teachers play) as well as voice in order to fill a studio. Non-voice students can be phased out of the studio as the number of voice students grows. Boytim also provides an immensely helpful method of teaching sight-singing quickly and relatively effectively. Her literature recommendations are also very sound for young singers. Some of the volumes Boytim recommends have been compiled, of course, by herself, but I highly doubt she's in it for the money. I've used one of her books for baritones and found it to contain many songs which were both entertaining and of musical substance. Critics may note that Boytim doesn't see much value in taking on students who aren't there to learn and who are "just there to hear themselves sing." While philosophical differences between teaching styles are common, I think voice teachers with a divergent view can easily read those passages with a grain of salt and move on to the more helpful sections. Boytim does have a significant section on figuring out how to comply with U.S. tax law, so voice teachers outside of the 50 states may find the book less helpful. For the voice teacher within the United States, however, this book has the potential to be an enormous resource. I strongly recommend it.

I really enjoyed this book and have found it extremely helpful. I have been teaching for about 7 years but have only fairly recently had an extremely full teaching schedule with students ranging in age from 7 years to about 48 years. I think that since reading this book and putting many of Ms Boytims ideas on teaching the student to read the music, my pupils are improving more rapidly. I enjoy the exercises she has written out and have been using many of her repertoire volumes for a while. I find the book has helped me to structure my lessons in a more meaningful way. The style of this book is very easy to read, it is written almost informally so is really easy to understand. I disagree that it is only useful to people who live in the USA as I live in South Africa and find it extremely useful. I would stronly recommend any singing teacher purchase this book although it is slanted towards the classical approach to voice training.

I've used this book to help set up a voice studio in my home and have found this book an invaluable tool. It really helped to get me organized. I found many of Ms. Boytim's techniques and exercises a very helpful aid in teaching my students. It is very well written and easy to understand.

This is a comprehensive book that reviews everything from beginning your studio to filing your taxes. She even refers the reader to different vocal technique and literature books. The exercises in the back of the book are simple and easy for the beginning voice student and the solfeggio worksheets are a fantastic way to help your students learn to sight read. It is nice to have a book like this for voice teachers who wish not only to teach their students how to sing better, but also teach them to teach themselves by knowing to sightread.

I have enjoyed this handbook by Joan Boytim, a teacher that most classically trained singers recognize immediately as a compiler of many great songs which were previously unknown or too expensive to purchase. I have used this book since it was published and highly disagree with the two previous comments. Although Boytim teaches with a classical approach, she does not alienate students who prefer to sing other styles. She makes the arguement that other styles of singing benefit from the classical method which promotes a healthy and long career, art, or hobby. The style of music does not even come into play in her approach until the student has learned how to read basic music and is able to sing with a nice tone (good tone being something from which many different styles can benefit). I have been teaching for 5 years, and after reading this book and trying the methods for a year, my students are better prepared to teach themselves than the 4 previous years. Boytim distinguishes between song teachers and voice teachers. Many students simply want a song teacher--someone to teach them how to sound good on songs they already know or else to teach them the song by rote. We do our students a disservice when we fail to assess and work on their knowledge of the basics. Do we train singers so they have more options than pop music? I can sing songs with scooping and breathiness as well as art songs and arias; can the pop-trained singer do both as well? Many think that the classical approach is limiting; I feel that I am limiting my students if I don't open their eyes to the amount of _printed_ music that they can discover on their own if they know how to read music. Boytim clearly states that entering her studio is like walking into a store and making a decision to buy or take lessons based on the goods offered (see pg 66). My store doesn't include popular music because it's too tempting for students to try to imitate the artist instead of developing their own unique and lovely tone quality. Others may offer that product, and that's fine. As for the previous reviewer's interpretation of page 92, let the reader decide: "There was a lady who merely wanted to pay me to play songs for her that she liked to sing. I soon realized that she was not interested in singing new repertoire, or really learning to sing better. The teacher in me ended this arrangement very quickly." I recently had a ninth-grade student come to me whose mother simply wanted me to admire her voice. Although she had much potential, the hard work that I required did not appeal to their expectations of me as a paid admirer. Boytim quotes Richard Miller on pg 65 from an article entitled "To Admire or to Teach," saying that "When a plumber is called in, he is not expected to admire the bathroom fixtures, but to repair them." When students only let their teachers see the stuff they already know how to do, they hinder their teachers from looking behind the fixtures a