I need a bit of advice. I recently took on a piano pupil, a boy aged 10. His piano lessons have being going fine, but his mother has now mentioned that he would like to learn to sing. I said that although I have had no professional singing lessons, I am happy to show him the basics, having sung in choirs etc.

The next lesson I turned up armed with loads of singing resources to start him on. However, he was not interested in anything I had (mainly little excersises, rounds and folk tunes) and declared that he wanted to sing Queen, the Rolling Stones and the Plain White Ts! I am at a loss to now what to do from here on in as I have several issus with this:

1) He has never sung properly before
2) He cannot pitch or hold a note (is this normal with point 1 in mind?)
3) I am certain that these songs will be far too advanced for begginner singers.
4) I am also certain that if I buy a book with these songs in, he will not be interested in reading the music, as he will just listen to his father's CD collection and sing along with them. In which case a book of lyrics is all we are going to need.

Does anybody have any advice? Any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks!

Hi CJP & welcome to the forums

Perhaps try posting in the Viva Voice forum to get more responses.

Sorry I can't be of any help!

I think you need to have a conversation with the Mum - he either wants to learn to sing - in which case he lets you introduce him to the ideas of 'how to pitch' in your own way, and accepts that whilst it is great to be able to sing along to CD's etc but this music is unsuitable for a complete beginner, and copying CD's is not what singing lessons are all about. Or he just continues with the piano alone, although there is no harm in doing a bit of sight singing in the lessons.

How about getting him to sing as he plays his piano pieces? All my students always sing as they play which not only teaches them to sing but also develops the inner ear. Also he could learn simple songs by ear (look at NYCOS Singing Games and Rhymes publications) which he could then play by ear on the piano, then transpose - also great for developing the inner ear.

Point 1) Most beginners haven't
2) No it isn't - the majority can, even without lessons. If the ear is good, the most common reason for pitch problems is lack of support of the voice and/or incorrect placement.
3) Yes, too advanced, and, more to the point, inappropriate songs for a treble, and inappropriate material for his age.
4) They may be written in, and sung on CD in an inappropriate key for his voice.

Even at 10, you would need to start with correct posture, breathing, support and placement - the basics as you call them, if he is not doing these naturally. These are probably what is causing his intonation problems. With a lot of youngters you may be able to get away (temporarily) with just doing exercises and repertoire, but where there are problems, you need to have the technical knowledge about what is likely to be causing these, and how to go about correcting them, plus what is reasonnable to expect from a voice at various stages in the student's development. Exercises are for a purpose - do you know what you want to achieve with them? I wouldn't necessarily give the same exercises to every student - they have different requirements. What exercise would you give to someone with a nasally tone, for instance? What do you do with your body in order to make the high notes easier? There's also no point in starting him on difficult repertoire if he cannot pitch properly.

Please don't be offended, but I have never yet met anyone who has had no formal singing lessons, who would know enough of the techniques required in singing even to sing to a high standard as a soloist, let alone teach it. I respectfully suggest you think seriously about teaching an instrument you obviously know nothing about (otherwise why your questions?), and charging for it. We singing teachers pick up these students down the line, when the original teacher has decided that they need to move on to someone "more experienced", and have to undo all the bad habits that an inexperienced teacher has not corrected. In short - we have to start from the beginning, and I have lost count of the number of times I have thought that they might just have well taken a match to a ten pound note, for all the good the lessons have done. Yes, you can teach someone a song, give them a few exercises, but do you know as much about singing technique as you do about piano? (I am assuming you are qualified in piano.) Singing is more than just being able to sing the notes in a song. Sorry if that sounded harsh, but if you don't know what you are doing, you can wreck a voice for life. There are no instrument repair shops for voices.
I've taken this point of view, because the Mum said he wanted to learn to sing, as opposed to a bit on singing to help with aural tests, so I am assuming he wants to take it seriously.

I whole heartedly agree with Ann here. She has put it much more clearly than I would have done. My advice would be to say to this boy's Mum that you teach piano, not singing, and suggest that she finds a singing teacher. Teaching the notes of a song, as opposed to teaching how to sing them , is not really what it's about. And it's not fair to try to learn how to do it by experimenting with young voices.