Carol Kagy
Occupation: Voice instructor
Career length: 15 years
Salary: $23/hour
Q. What does your job as voice instructor entail?
A. People come to me to learn how to sing better. That includes knowing how to breathe properly, improving tone quality, increasing range, and learning songs. I guide them through that process.
Q. How did you get started in this field?
A. Basically, I think this job chose me. People who get involved in teaching singing are for the most part professional singers, people who perform gigs themselves. That’s what I do–I also perform in clubs around Chicago. So it’s kind of a natural step for singers to take the knowledge we’ve acquired and pass it along.
Q. What is your background?
A. I have a bachelor of fine arts from City College in New York City, and then I have a master of music from Ithaca College in New York. My training would include all the years I’ve been performing in clubs. I was the vocalist for the Glenn Miller Orchestra from ’92 to ’94, performing sometimes 29 gigs in a row, night after night. And that’s good training. It’s not just having the college experience; that gives you the technical information, but you have to work on your own voice.
Q. Do you teach at various places?
A. I have. I taught at the City College in New York City. Now I teach at the Old Town School [of Folk Music], and I teach out of my house as well.
Q. Describe a typical day.
A. I get to school about half an hour before I begin [teaching], and I might copy materials for my vocal tech class, or I go to the resource center–we have a great resource center in the basement of the Old Town School–and I look for songs that I want my students to learn. Then the students come into my studio. Most lessons are about 30 minutes long–I have some 45s and a couple 60s–and I have about 35 students.
Each person who walks in has a unique voice, and it’s my job to help them discover it and develop it. We’ll begin with practice exercises that are designed to strengthen the voice and the vocal chords. Depending on the level of the student, this can take the whole time, or just a portion of it. Then we move into working on songs, so the techniques that they learned in the exercises can be directly applied to the singing of actual material.
I have students who are interested in many different styles of music: pop, jazz, blues, rock, country. I don’t do classical music myself. I think it’s important to develop a repertoire. If you take voice lessons consistently, you could develop a nice group of songs, and you could just go out and get a job.
Q. Are most people who come to you looking to perform?
A. Some people are. Maybe they had sung before, or they always wanted to but they need to gain confidence. Other people just like to sing. Or some people have a specific goal in mind, such as, “I have to sing these two songs for a wedding in three months, and I need to get my voice in shape.”
Q. What’s the best part of your job?
A. That’s easy. I love the friendly and open environment of the school. The school attracts a really diverse group of great students. And I like the camaraderie that the teachers and the staff have together.
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Q. What’s the worst part?
A. The worst part is–and this is absolutely the truth–finding time to eat something when you’re teaching. In between each student, I have my little sandwich and my water, but it’s finding time to eat. Most of us start [teaching] and we just go straight through.
Q. What are three essential attributes to being a voice instructor?
A. Understanding how the voice works, through the development of your own. You need to play the piano, because you need to have some sort of instrument that you can accompany your students with. And you’ve got to have patience, because the process of learning to sing can be frustrating for your students. I need to reassure them that positive change can occur if they put in the time and the practice.