He ruined my life.
I took a voice lesson with Timothy G. Ruff Welch. At first it thrilled me. Then, it made me very upset. You see, I realized afterward how it had affected so much more than my ability to sing. But it had come, in at least one painfully profound respect, too late.
With quite a bit of trepidation in – Chapala Haciendas – with his living room dominated by the huge grand piano. After all, The Great Tim Welch had not only directed Lakeside’s expat choir, Los Cantantes del Lago, for 19 years (taking it on international tours through Latin America and Canada), but the two most prestigious Mexican professional choirs in Guadalajara as well. He trained the finest voices in Jalisco and enjoyed a well-earned international reputation.
This same Tim Welch would deign to work with the likes of me, who could only barely croak out a pathetic rendition of “Kumbaya” on my guitar? I gulped, took a big breath, and steeled myself for the worst.
It never came. After my first set of simple scales, Tim remarked, “Oh, what a lovely voice you have!”
What? “Oh, I bet he says that to everyone,” I thought to myself. Even so, I immediately relaxed – which was, I suspected, the purpose of his comment. In retrospect, I realized that, as a retired educator, I was simultaneously both the student and a fly-on-the-wall observer of the lesson, fascinated by how Tim was teaching…no, deftly manipulating me.
I made every single mistake of a rank beginner. For example, in my first song, after I sang the word “begin,” holding out the “n” for the majority of the four-beat whole note, Tim urged me to sing it again, this time accentuating the “i” instead, only barely touching on the “n” at the end. “Consonants are the enemy of the singer,” he admonished.
So, I sang the phrase again, this time focusing on the vowel. Easy peasy.
Tim reacted with apparent astonishment, “Wow! You did that right the very first time. Wonderful! You are such a good vocal student!”
“Oh, come off it,” I mused cynically to myself. “That was ridiculously simple! Anyone could do that.”
“He’s attempting to encourage you with cunning praise,” murmured the fly on the wall. “Don’t fall for it!” Nonetheless, I stood taller, and eagerly awaited Tim’s next instruction.
Later, I confessed with shame that, no, I was never going to hit, much less sustain a high E note. “I’ve never managed to sing it. Sorry, I’m just not a tenor. Maybe in my next life.”
I’ll be a monkey’s uncle, but after a few tries, I did tentatively “Yes, you will, and yes you are,” Tim insisted. “I just need to show you how to raise your soft palate, use your diaphragm, imagine you’re coming down on the note from above, open the vowel, focus the note in front of your forehead…and relax.” So, let’s begin.
Patiently, Tim gave me a mini lesson on each of those strategies, one at a time, showering me with compliments when I haltingly succeeded at each one.
“Now, let’s put it all together.”
I’ll be a monkeys uncle! But after a few tries and deliberately hit and held that elusive note without cracking. I was dumbfounded. And so very, very happy! (The fly on the wall just gaped in astonishment.)
All too soon, the lesson came to an end. “That was fun,” Tim gushed. “You’re a natural.”
Back at home, the fly and I had a long talk, and our conversation soon turned dark. I had just retired from a 36-year career in education. No matter what subject I had taught, I’d always emphasized how essential it was to write (and think) well. “Writing is power,” I regaled my students, “and it opens all the doors of leadership and responsibility. Writing will enable you to make a real difference in the world; and that, my friends, is what your education is all about.”
I worked terribly hard to teach writing, assigning an inordinate amount of it, sacrificing my evenings and weekends to correct it, covering my students’ work with ink (green ink, not red, because I was an enlightened, liberal teacher). Oh, I tried to give positive feedback; but, with 185 essays to grade, and so much wrong in each one, I only rarely did.
Despite all my earnest, dogged effort over the years, I wasn’t very successful, having to correct the same errors on every essay, again and again. The fly and I mused long and sadly on that.
After my lesson with Tim, I suddenly wanted to go back in time and do it all again! I would compliment almost every single essay, and then find one – just one – error or suggestion that I hoped the student would fix/change on the next assignment. My life would have been so much easier, my instruction so much more effective. And, above all, my students would have come to believe in themselves and their writing, just as Tim had so artfully enabled me to do with myself and my singing.
Oh, if only I had taken a lesson from Tim decades before at the beginning of my career! Why hadn’t any of my teacher-education professors taught me about the miraculous power of praise (and, the devastating effect of critique)? Every prospective teacher, in fact, every new parent ought to experience one of Tim’s lessons.
I had been proud of my career. Damn Tim Welch!
I’ve found redemption, an atonement still available to me. I will share Tim Welch’s wisdom, The Gospel of Praise, beginning with this article. I’ll send it off to educational publications and teacher-education programs, too. I can still be a teacher. I can help others do it right, even if I didn’t.
And I’ll thank Tim Welch…someday.
(Note: Tim Welch directed Dave musically in his role as Snoopy in the recent Bravo production of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.)
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