Facebook, texting, twitter, and other social media are everywhere. Last blog entry I wrote how teachings studios are affected by Facebook. But what about texting?
Texting
Texting seems to be more and more prevalent, even with the over-40 crowd such as myself. Although I have to put on my glasses now in order to read my text messages, I have the majority of my students programmed into my phone. In fact, I recently had to change my phone plan to unlimited texting as I was constantly over my allotted monthly texts. I have discovered that texting has made life easier. Most of my students are courteous, even to the extent of texting me if they are running late. I greatly appreciate that. I rarely call a student because they will not answer; they prefer to text.
The only time texting becomes invasive is when students text me late at night or during the weekend. To their credit, I have not set limitations with my voice students, and most of the time, I answer them back. If I receive a text on a Friday evening, I will wait until the following day to respond. It also becomes intrusive when a student texts me questions about repertoire ideas, class assignments, or vocal technique. I do not have time to give free, detailed advice about appoggio via a text. An e-mail would be better, but that is really what voice lessons are for. For those kinds of situations, I will ignore the text until I see the singer in person. Then I will have a brief and friendly discussion about texting versus e-mail.
Singer Feedback
What do other singers think about FB and texting? Have they experienced similar issues? I received lots of fascinating and interesting feedback, as well as some useful suggestions. Many students liked being in touch with their teachers through Facebook as they felt it paved the way for better communication and trust.
“I’m friends with my teachers on FB and I text them,” shares soprano Charlotte Sutton Filo, a voice performance major at Kent State University. “I think keeping methods of communication open is a good way to nurture the relationship between teacher and student. I think the world of music is extremely small, and keeping connections is important.”
“I am still friends with my old voice teacher on FB,” says Catherine Carr Otto, soprano and 2011 graduate in vocal performance from Kent State University. “I believe that voice teachers are more than just teachers, but friends and life coaches. I think it is perfectly acceptable to have a relationship with them through social media.”
One of my UNLV voice students, senior voice performance major and baritone Kyle Johnson, agrees that FB can be a positive connection. “I enjoy having the freedom to openly communicate with my voice teacher through Facebook and texting. Both ways of communicating are simple and informal, and I feel like I have a heightened level of familiarity with my voice teacher, which contributes to me feeling more open and trusting in my voice lesson. That being said, there still needs to be some sort of professional barrier between teacher and student, and on Facebook I’m not always posting the most appropriate things. I have to hold back sometimes on pictures I share and statuses I post because I don’t want someone I look up to to have a negative view of me. I think setting up a page for a studio would keep that teacher/student relationship intact while keeping easy communication open.”
Ed, a voice major from Auckland University in New Zealand, has done just that. “I started a group for all the voice students at Auckland University, and some of the voice teachers will post pertinent information. We often have FB discussions about what is changing in opera.”
Teacher Feedback
Many teachers had a different perspective. Although they liked the personal connection, many were uncomfortable with the kind of information their students were so freely and publicly revealing. Cynthia Vaughn, founder and director of Magnolia Music Studio in Fort Collins, Colo., illustrates the predicament many teachers are currently facing. Vaughn recently switched her FB policies after some careful consideration. Previously, she accepted her students as FB friends, but since many of them were still in high school, she began to feel “that there were too many embarrassing or worrisome status updates from students. OMG. TMI. There are things I don’t need to know about my students’ relationships and activities. The final straw was a late-night status update posted by a 16-year old student, ‘I’m sooooooo drunk.’” She knew she had to make some changes.
Before making a decision, Vaughn sought the advice from fellow voice teachers by posting her quandary on the NATS members-only FB page. “I am considering unfriending all of my teen students from my personal Facebook page due to the number of inappropriate posts, language, and photos that cross my newsfeed. I don’t stalk or post on high schoolers’ pages, but there are a lot of things I really don’t want to know about my teen students and their friends. There are obviously some mature teens who use FB responsibly, but I don’t want to tacitly support highly personal or irresponsible posts. Teens would still have access to my public posts and the studio business page, I just wouldn’t be able to see their pages.”
To Vaughn’s surprise, everyone who responded was unanimously in favor. She was not alone in the idea of separating studio and personal FB pages. She created a separate page for her studio and unfriended her young singers on her personal page.
“I update the studio page daily,” she says. “I try to balance posts with student and faculty news, marketing for upcoming events and classes, community events and auditions, and a sprinkling of inspirational music quotes and funny music cartoons. I encourage other local music friends to post their concerts and events on the studio page. The studio page currently has 350 ‘likes’ as my target audience is local. Artist pages or pages by teachers with books or videos or who do a lot of workshops across the country seek to gain thousands of fans. That is not my goal. I keep the business page professional and squeaky clean, I am quick to delete the rare spam post or any profanity or mean-spirited comment.”
Others, however, still maintain only one FB account and find it works well, especially if the majority of students are at the collegiate level. “I text my students and I friend most of them on Facebook. I frequently Facebook my studio with messages about term scheduling, reminders, get-togethers, and studio classes. I have better luck with using texting and Facebook than phoning or e-mailing them because I get faster responses!” explains Jacqueline Barlow-Ware, assistant professor of music at Capital University.
“I’m Facebook friends with my students and, yes, they text me or Facebook message me instead of calling or e-mailing,” agrees Audra Puccio Nagby, a San Diego area voice teacher. “I like it, because they can send me a message and don’t have to worry if I’m in a lesson, because I’ll just text them back after the lesson is over. It’s much easier than the olden days when we played phone tag.”
Summing It Up
Social media can be a positive addition to the voice studio, and texting with students has definitely made life easier when quickly trying to contact a teacher or singer. But both also pose their challenges as they can expose and infringe on personal lives. Singers and teachers need to figure out what works for them and then set boundaries accordingly. For me, those boundaries are still evolving, and I have yet to come up with the perfect solution.
One thing I do know, if you don’t like the cute pictures of my 90-pound white German Shepherd-Siberian Husky on FB, keep in mind that I have to look at the “cute” pictures of your cat as well.
Social Media and the Voice Studio – Part 2
