Group singing lessons in Santa Cruz County:
When private lessons are not available, either for financial, time availability, or other reasons, many people will turn to group singing lessons instead. The prices are often lower and hours longer since it’s group based and the cost can be divided among all the students. Group singing lessons are basically what they sound like, a group of people learning how to sing better. Often times these classes involve a group of people coming together with the common interest of improving their voice through singing lessons. This can come in many forms of classes depending on what the specific focus is for their voices. Sometimes the classes can be focused on stage performance and stage etiquette ( check out our Performance Voice Class) or it can focus on the technique behind improving your voice ( check out our Singing Essentials Class) or it can even go so far as focusing on how to write your very own music ( check out our Creative Writing Class.)
As creative and specific as group singing lessons in the Santa Cruz area can be there are always a few things in common. There should always be a vocal coach present to help instruct the students in different warm ups and vocal techniques. These warmups are great to teach students how to prepare their voice to sing, whether its for a performance or simply to work on a song of their choice. You can think of warm up as a type of stretching. Just like you need to stretch before you go running, you also need to stretch before you sing. Group singing lessons will always, or at least they should always, go over warmups at the very start of class. Once the voice is warmed up then it’s time to start focusing on vocal technique. Different technique drills will work on different trouble spots for singers and their voices. It can often range between helping a student learn how to sing on pitch, expand their vocal range, create a fuller sound, breath control, belting or even as far as learning how to manipulate a vowel to create the desired effect. All of these technique are great to use with a piano but they can also all be applied to any song of choice. It’s the perfect way to prepare students for singing their songs with confidence and a sharpened ability.
The beauty with having group singing lessons in Santa Cruz is that everyone gets to learn in different ways. When you have Private Singing Lessons you learn with one on one coaching from a voice teacher, but you have some limitations that group lessons don’t. In group lessons you learn from participating, just like in private lessons, but you also get to learn from observing. There will be times in group lessons where another student is singing while you are observing. This is a great way to learn! You get watch and listen to the other students make mistakes, get constructive advice from the vocal coach and then correct their mistakes. When it’s your time to go up and sing you will be more understanding about what is to come and will have a greater ability to improve.
What are the benefits of getting group singing lessons within Santa Cruz County?
There are many benefits to taking group singing lessons within Santa Cruz area! Here at Forte Vocal Academy we try to jam pack our group singing classes with as much activities and information as possible all while keeping the tone of having fun. Who wants to sing when it’s boring right?! So with our lessons we make sure that each student is given the quality classes they paid for. You can expect a multitude of improvements to come from your voice! Often times our students experience a great control of their instrument. Their vocal range expands. They fix any pitch problems. They gain greater breath support. They even fine tune their ears to be able to problem solve on their own outside the class. There’s clearly more improvements within our group lessons, but I think you get the idea.
Stage fright can also be a great overcoming with our group singing lessons. Did you know that public speaking is the number one fear of Americans?! Guess what helps you overcome this fear?…yep you guessed it! Group singing lessons. You see often time the fear of singing or speaking in public simply has to do with being afraid of what other people will this of you. What if you mess up and they start laughing? What if you forget the words? what if…? Luckily when you take singing lessons in a group setting you are surrounded by other people just like you. They’re all nervous, afraid, scared….yet that makes them super supportive. They don’t care if you mess up, forget the words or sound bad. They’re simply cheering you on for getting up there to sing in the first place! This creates the encouraging environment for all singers to start branching out and gain the courage to sing in front of others.
Singing in front of your fellow classmates isn’t the only time you get to learn while taking group voice lessons. You also learn while sitting down and observing. There have many times where a student has come up to us after class and mentioned how much they learned simply by listening to and observing the other singers. It can be eye opening to see another singer get corrected on the same exact problem you have while singing, watch them struggle to fix it and then overcome it. As singers it is hard sometimes to realize that how we hear ourselves sing isn’t the same way the audience does. For instance we may think we are singing loud, even though the voice teacher says otherwise, but we don’t fully realize this until another student is corrected on the same problem. You can see in their face the confusion as they think they are singing loud, though they are not. This may be the same expression you gave when you were told the same advice. With group voice lessons it’s just one more way for you to learn about your voice and improve that much faster.
What makes Forte Vocal Academy’s group singing lessons the best that Santa Cruz County has to offer?
As we created our group voice lessons we knew there were a few issues with other businesses and the classes they were providing. The top issue we were finding is that often times other businesses will have a large amount of students in their group voice lessons but only one teacher. We believe this is a big issue. At Forte Vocal Academy we make sure to keep the student to teacher radio correct. In groups that involve vocal focus we make sure to have no more than 15 students per vocal coach and if there is any choreography or movements involved, like in our Top Pop class, we make sure the ratio is one vocal coach for every seven students. This makes the ability for each student to get the proper attention they need and are paying for. We make sure to give each student the perfect environment to adapt and develop their vocal skills.
Not only do we make sure to have a great teacher to student ratio, but we also make sure our teachers are actual VOICE teachers. Unlike many other classes taught in Santa Cruz, we don’t run our classes with unqualified high school volunteers. All of our vocal coaches are certified instructors with years of experience teaching either one on one or in the group environment. Their skills and expertise will always be present for you to learn from as well as reach for advice on vocal technique at any time during your lessons.
The last problem we knew needed to be solved was that even though the students decided to take group lessons instead of private lessons, we didn’t want them to lose out on the pin pointing of their problems like they would get in private lessons. Often times when singing only in a group a student can start to not only develop bad habits, but they can also engrain them into their regular routine. When singing in a group it’s just simply too easy for a vocal teacher to not be able to hear the specific problem areas and mistakingly over look them. That’s why in all our group voice lessons we make sure to take a small amount of time separately with each student to go over trouble spots one on one and give the correct solutions. We quickly hear a problem, asses it, and then send that student home with specific vocal drills to practice and fix the problem. The student now knows what to listen for with their voice then when they return back to group lessons they will use it more as an opportunity to fine tune this trouble spot and quickly improve their voice.
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