[Vocals and First Year] 33. Between Understanding and Reproduction: The Output of Vocal Training

*This content was translated by AI.

This week, I attended a lecture by a current professional in the entertainment industry. Among the many stories shared, the word "output" lingered with me for a long time.

While numerous ideas and judgments are exchanged in the process of creating an album, what ultimately reaches the market is the music and content that has actually been produced. After attending the lecture, I reflected on the vocal training I am currently conducting. What is the output of a vocal trainer?

Recently, during lessons, I have frequently experienced the gap between explanation and result. There are times when I explain a problem and receive the response "I understand" from the student, yet the sound does not change. During a lesson, the desired sound may be produced, but in the next session, it may revert to the previous sound.

Understanding is different from being able to do something.

Being able to do something is also different from being able to reproduce it repeatedly.

In vocal training, a great deal of content is conveyed verbally. Explanations such as "Let's try to maintain the breath pressure a little more," "Let's use the back space more broadly," or "Let's hold the vowels a bit longer" are common. Sometimes, the direction of the sound is demonstrated with hands, or expressed by analogy to spatial concepts.

However, singing is ultimately a sound heard by the ears and produced by the body. When a trainer conveys their knowledge of sound and sensation through words, the student must translate that back into sound through their own ears and body. There is thus a translation process that flows from the trainer to the student, and then from the student's body into sound.

Lately, I have begun to wonder if I am spending too much time on explanations. This difference became more apparent while watching dance classes. There were moments when it was faster for the instructor to demonstrate a movement directly than to explain it in multiple sentences. Vocal training is similar. When a trainer directly demonstrates the target sound, the student can compare it with their own sound by ear. Sometimes, one accurate demonstration is faster than several sentences of explanation.

In vocal training, such demonstrations can be utilized as modeling. However, the goal is not to imitate the trainer's voice exactly. Each person has a different vocal range, timbre, physical condition, and vocal habits. A demonstration serves less as an answer to be copied and more as a reference point that allows the student to verify by ear the sound they are currently seeking.

Change also requires time. To identify a problem within one hour, attempt a new sound, confirm the difference from the previous sound, and then apply it to singing again involves multiple stages. Therefore, rather than focusing on how much content was covered in an hour, it is necessary to examine what changed between before and after the lesson.

It does not end simply because the sound has changed in the practice room. That change must continue outside of lessons as well.

Recently, when I asked a student how much they had practiced, they said they listened to their lesson songs in the car every day. Repeatedly listening is part of the process of learning a song. However, listening to a song and repeating and correcting specific parts with one's own voice are different activities. In particular, to change vocal habits, it is necessary to directly produce the sound found during lessons, record it and listen to it, and compare it with previous sounds.

That said, one cannot simply criticize the student's amount of practice. Saying "Please come back having practiced" is different from telling them what and how to practice. If a new sound is discovered during a lesson, it is necessary to specifically present what should be repeated and in what manner until the next lesson. Designing the time between lessons is also part of training.

There are cases where change is slow despite understanding the explanations and practicing. The student may not sufficiently distinguish the difference between their own sound and the target sound, or they may hear the difference but be unable to implement it physically. Conversely, even if the desired sound is produced once, if the student does not know what has changed, it becomes difficult to find that same sound again.

There are several processes involved in turning a single explanation into reproducible change.

Explanation → Recognition → Attempt and Reproduction → Feedback → Repetition → Result

It does not always follow this order. Some students need an accurate demonstration, while others require more time to distinguish their own sound. For yet other students, a practice method that allows them to repeat sounds they have already created on their own is needed before learning new vocal techniques.

So, where can the results of a vocal trainer be verified?

Producing a sound in a lesson that could not be produced before is a change. Being able to sing a song more stably than before is also a change. What is important is that the sound created in this way does not happen just once. For change to accumulate, the student must recognize what has changed, reproduce it again, and be able to repeat it even during times when the trainer is not present.

Can a sound produced once be produced again?

When considering the results of vocal training, this question becomes quite a specific criterion. It involves verifying whether the student has come to hear differences they could not hear before, and whether they have become able to recreate sounds they could not produce before, rather than how much the trainer explained.

There is a distance between an explanation reaching understanding and that understanding becoming a reproducible sound. The results of vocal training can be verified in the process of gradually narrowing that distance.

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*This content was translated by AI.