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Disabled Students (All Teachers)
This may sound odd, but has anyone here had any students with no legs before?
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23 Replies
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I have a blind woman…?
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got first session with him tomorrow, just looking for any tips on working with disabled people! (talk about being thrown in the deep end lol)
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Yes, that’s quite something!
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I’m thinking lots of diaphragm help, posture will be interesting…
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Yeah that’s what I was thinking, I find singing sitting down difficult at the best of times.. Posture will be very interesting!
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I find teaching the blind woman difficult because you realise there’s more issues than blindness. Like listening, believe it or not…
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…and patience!
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Ooh that’s interesting! How do you work around her disability then?
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I teach her naked.
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😛 ermmm I just try to not sound too intimidating and annoying, and explain things clearly and slowly…
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lol that’s when you find out she’s only partially blind…
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Funny you should say that, I was on my phone making notes on her lessons and she went “what are you doing on your phone?” As if to have caught me out with her partially working blurred left eye.
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i’m thinking this guy will probably lack self confidence and need lots of encouragement.. my other issue is he wants to sing rock music with a gravelly tone, the deep end got deeper!
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lol did you have the volume on?
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no!
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it’s a hoax then, she just wanted to see you naked..
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Check for tension in his abdominal muscles (especially rectus abdominis) – I’m guessing that he’ll be using those muscles to compensate for his balance in lieu of his legs. But no reason why you should lower your expectations – he sounds like a great client to have! Also, you can use his wheelchair to help him anchor 😉 Great to hear that you’re getting cracking with the teaching, Ben 🙂
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Everyone wants to see me naked.
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Thanks Matt, things are moving slowly but surely. This guy is my first (paying) student on singing (I have one on bass), so it will be a toughie to start on! It has been frustrating as I just want to get on with it, but I am finally getting some traffic on my website so fingers crossed. I have plenty more questions though lol
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Haha I bet – Dover’s a tough strip! – how does a Skype this weekend look? 🙂
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It is tough, but it’s the best i could make of the situation. Sounds good, let me know when you’re available!
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Good for you, Ben. Let us know how it goes!
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Well that was interesting! He wasn’t in a wheelchair, but his short-term memory loss was actually more of an obstacle than his physical disability.
We worked on posture and introduced the idea of diaphragmatic breathing, but his biggest issue was that in trying to get a gravelly tone he was squeezing his voice into pretty much a hoarse whisper. We started trying to release the tension by introducing the ‘inside smile’ in search of a more open sound, but this could take some work methinks..
I told him we would come back to the gravelly thing once he had the fundamentals right, but that’s not something i can actually do very well! Lol