Dianne Stewart Singing Lessons

Tuesday, November 9, 2021 by Dianne Stewart | Studio News

Hi Everyone, 

Just a note to say that I will be finishing up lessons the 2nd week in December - so the last lessons being on Saturday the 11th of December.  

I will be starting back again in the 3rd week of February - so lessons will start from Monday the 14th of February.

I will be available for lessons in January if you would like to book something in - just to keep you going or to get ready for a performance - I will be available from Monday Jan 10 to Saturday January 29 - but you will need to book in your time with me in advance - no regular lessons will be booked in for that time.

I will send out an email in the first week of February to confirm with current students if they are returning and if they would like to hold their current day and time - or if you would like to confirm earlier I am happy to do that - but from the 2nd week in February 2022 I will be open to new students bookings.

Next Performance opportunity - SPACi Take the Stage Open Mic - theme is Anything Goes so any song is ok - Friday the 19th of November at the Stawell Golf Club - come along and enjoy the night. facebook Event Link

Have fun singing

Dianne

Wednesday, October 6, 2021 by Dianne Stewart | Blog

We all know practice is important.  Practice makes perfect, practice is how we get better at things, it takes 10,000 hours of doing something to become a master of it.  These are all pieces of information that are often referred to when we talk about practice, but what is practice?  

Here is what I recommend for my singers (and for myself) 

• REGULAR - practice needs to be regular, daily if you can manage it but definitely a few times a week - schedule it in like a lesson with yourself
• PURPOSEFUL - know what you are practicing to improve - have a focus - review your singing goals
  • learning the notes? listen to the learning track - play it on the piano if you can - recognise the notes you are having trouble with - bring that to your lesson to work more
  • memorising the lyrics - putting the music down, testing your memory, writing out the lyrics, working out the patters or story or other way to remember it
  • working in a skill - dynamics, soft and loud or singing in your light high voice and so many more - you may have a list to work on
  • working on a difficult passage of a song - using techniques like slow it down, tap the beat or rhythm out 
• REVIEW - what did you achieve? in your practice - what do you need to focus on next time - having a practice journal can help you stay focussed and see what you have achieved - and celebrate it.

Even 10 minutes where you practice a few little voice exercises, work on your posture or breathing, or just have time to look at one small passage or entry - every little bit adds up and puts us a step further along the path of learning and achieving our goals.

So -  start with review - what are your practice goals for this week?

And don't forget you can track your practice in the student portal - you can even send me a video or recording of your practice so I can see how you are going at home.

So have fun singing and keep on practicing - we all like singing so we should all like practicing too

Dianne

Sunday, September 12, 2021 by Dianne Stewart | Blog

I love the new world of online information and support.  There is so much good stuff out there.  

I listen to 4 podcasts about voice teaching and choir leading and listening to them makes doing the housework for me bearable!  But I am also a member of the Kodály Music Education Institute of Australia KMEIA and the Australian National Association of the Teachers of Singing ANATS who both have online blogs, email newsletters, workshops and conferences.  And if there was a singing teacher close enough to me who could support my own continuing voice learning I would be having individual lessons myself.  

Why?  Because I want to be the best singer I can be and I want to be the best singing teacher I can be, and this for me means continuing to learn and grow and be open to new ideas and ways of doing things and I want to encourage all of my singers to be open to new learning, to listen and read and attend workshops and be involved other musical learning like school or community band, learning an instrument with another instrumental teacher, being a part of school and community performances and just being open to learning and growing.

But when you have a lot of information coming in it is sometimes contradictory - so I love to talk with my singers about what they are doing and leaning in these other spaces, discuss why some teachers work in different ways and for what possible reasons, how the work we are doing can support their participation in those other activities and even about how some of that information can be included, or not, in the work that we are doing together in our lessons together.

When I was a beginning singer I depended on my teacher to give me music, to play accompaniment for me and it was very difficult to do anything outside of my lesson because I did not play any instrument - at all!!  These days we can easily use recordings, online portals, online music shops where we can find sheet music to just about any song we hear as well as backing tracks as well.  And this is just great because my singers can bring songs to me and I get to hear and sing songs I would never know if they didn't bring them to me.

This month ANATS is running an online workshop all about Jazz styles and how to sing and teach them - and I am really looking forward to this - i love Jazz and I encourage my singers to give that style a try - and even though I love it and know quite a bit about how it works I am really looking forward to learning more, knowing more and being able to share that with singers.

So, Looking forward to keeping learning and sharing and having fun singing.

Hope to see you all back in the studio soon

Dianne