<p>Just starting to look at colleges with my high school junior D for vocal performance. Based on things I have read on CC, it is important to find a college with a good voice teacher to properly develop my D's skills. Being completely ignorant of this process, how does this work? How is it determined who your private voice instructor will be in college? Do you typically work with one teacher or do you work with multiple instuctors over the course of 4 years. Any insight as to how this process works to help select good schools to audition at would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>I can’t speak directly about voice (there are people on here who will respond I am sure), but I thought I would give a quick answer for auditioned music programs in general. If a program has multiple teachers in an area/instrument (and I am guessing voice) when a student auditions they generally are asked to give a list of teacher preferences. During the audition, when the teacherson the panel give their feedback, they also are asked to indicate whether they would be willing to teach the student. If the student is deemed admissible to the program, the admissions people will try and match the student’s choice to what the teachers have indicated (and if not, work it out). Note that in terms of admissions, a teacher has to indicate they want to teach the student; in theory, a student can audition, have really high numbers, and if no teacher indicates they would be willing to teach them, they wouldn’t get in. </p>
<p>This is generalized, there are a lot of music programs out there and I am sure there are variations. From what I know, Jacobs works differently, the student auditions, gets in and then goes and finds a teacher willing to teach them, and maybe other schools do this.</p>
<p>From what i have seen and heard from kids in music school, they usually end up having the same teacher through 4 years for their main lessons. There could be variations on this, or a teacher could leave, but this is what seems to be the norm. Some teachers have assistants (talking teachers in their own right) who often will work on the basic technique and such while the ‘master’ teacher works on the fine points, musical expression, etc…but in general, it appears to me that students will generally have the same teacher through the 4 years.</p>
<p>My son is a freshman voice major so he went through this process last year. He did research on the various schools to see who the voice teachers were and to determine which teachers he thought he would like to work with (some of this he based upon information that he could find and some of it was based upon discussions with his current voice teacher and other people who had been involved with vocal performance). Then, he scheduled sample lessons with the various teachers to see what he thought of their teaching style and to see if it was someone he thought he could work with. This is then what he used to select where he would apply. There were a few schools that indicated that they would not be able to tell him who his teacher would be until after he was accepted and was registering for classes. He decided not to apply to any school that would not let him know this information before he had to accept/commit to go there.</p>
<p>At some point in the process (either during the intital application process or once he was selected for an audition), he was asked to provide information about teachers at the school that he would like to work with. Finally, after the audition process, he received calls and emails from a number of teachers that had heard him during the audition to see if he would be interested in working with them.</p>
<p>Once he is accepted, the schools let him know who his voice teacher would be in his acceptance package. I know the schools compare who he requests to who the teachers want to add or have room for. He actually received all of his first choices so this ended up not being an issue for him.</p>
<p>From the standpoint of keeping the same teacher, the information that was communicated was that as long as the teacher stays at the school and the student is progressing satisfactorily, they stay with the same teacher. If things are not working out, most schools have a process to allow the student to switch teachers if necessary.</p>
<p>Thank you both. Very helpful information. Sounds like alot of homework!!</p>