Amelia, AKA ‘Curly Coach’ is a specialist musical theatre vocal coach who has been delivering coaching to children and young people in theatre, film and television for 20 years. Amelia joins Alexa this week on Singing Teachers Talk to chat about her vast career, getting young people excited about non-contemporary singing, teaching legit, the importance of quiet singing, and most of all how to deal with pushy parents.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- People think that you always have to hit those hard notes and belt out a song, but casting directors look for performers with variety and range. Quiet singing is a controlled skill that many people need to learn.
- We know students don’t always want to listen to us. A great way of teaching is encouraging our students to find things out by themselves. Encourage them to listen to a singer do a wide range of styles, so they can hear and feel it for themselves.
- A good way to see what musical directors want in the here and now is to compare how the sound of a musical has evolved over the years. Compare the original sound to how it is currently being performed.
- Some of Amelia’s advice for dealing with pushy parents is to get an expert to back you up. If you can find a class or talk on video where an expert agrees with you, it will help convince them that you’re right. Another approach is the banter approach, it won’t work with everyone but talking to them and lightly letting them know that you wouldn’t tell them how to do their job. If you can’t make it work, don’t be afraid to let a student with toxic parents go. Acknowledge that they’re looking for something that you can’t or don’t want to provide.
BEST MOMENTS
‘I always wanted to play Rizzo but always ended up a Sandy’
‘To sing big, you’ve got to be able to sing small’
‘Each time period has its own evolving sound’
‘In the industry at the moment, people are needing to be as diverse as possible’
EPISODE RESOURCES
Guest Website
Social Media:
@AmeliaCarrVocalCoach
#curlycoach
Relevant Links & Mentions:
- Mentioned Musicals: Hamilton; Dear Evan Hansen; Grease; Rent; Carousel; Oklahoma!; The Sound of Music; Frozen; Heathers; The King & I; Sweet Charity; Gypsy; Easter Parade; On the Town; Wicked; The Bridges of Madison County; Singing in the Rain; Company; Matilda; Les Miserables
- Mentioned Artists: Rodgers & Hammerstein; Cole Porter; Jason Robert Brown; Adele; Carrie Hope Fletcher; Kelli O’Hara; Louise Dearman; Cynthia Erivo; Steven Pasquale
- Jai Ramage
- Kim Chandler
- The Vocalscope Book club
- Nadine Cox
ABOUT THE GUEST
Amelia, AKA ‘Curly Coach’ is a specialist musical theatre vocal coach who has worked in the professional industry and has been delivering coaching to children and young people who work professionally in theatre, film and television for 20 years. Amelia’s experience of performing, coaching and having run a 380-strong performing arts school, coupled with a passion for coaching professional performers, inspires her work, bringing an understanding of the complexities faced by young performers training for and working in the industry.
Amelia has worked at many UK training schools and colleges, and currently enjoys teaching some of the many talented performers at Laine theatre arts as well as at her private London practice and her Online Singing School Associate programme.
Her studies have involved a multi-disciplinary research project for helping professional children in musical theatre experience performance anxiety. Amelia received a distinction for her MA research project and is now teaching these helpful strategies to teachers and performers of all ages across the UK.
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