I love my job! Really, I do. It’s taken me quite some time (and some detours) to find a way of combining my passions and create a fulfilling profession for myself. Yet, ungrateful as it may sound, there are some things I don’t quite like about my job as a pronunciation coach:

Tech Kung Fu

Coaching singers and choirs on German pronunciation and diction is what I love and do best. Thank God I’ve found that perfect combination and can make a living from it. 😊

However, it’s not only doing some preparation and then going online on Zoom or Skype. In fact, that’s the easy part – but unfortunately not the only one in my profession as an internationally working pronunciation coach.

What I’m often struggling with are technical issues in the “backend” of my business: setting up my homepage, for example, installing cryptic plugins and what the Mephisto are landing pages?

Up to now, I’ve always found a way to do what I had intended -either by myself or by figuring out who to ask. In the end, I’m always relieved and proud but sometimes I wished it wouldn’t take me so long.

“Professor” YouTube

Honestly folks, I’m weary of explaining that although there are very good recordings out there in the vast land of digital music, you simply can’t take a YouTube video as a basis for learning diction!

Maybe there are nuances in pronunciation you don’t hear (yet), maybe the singer isn’t a native German and sings with a slight accent. It may also be that the recording is from decades back and as singing styles are changing so is language and its diction – especially in singing. An early Elisabeth Schwarzkopf recording may be beautifully sung (in fact it is!) but it can hardly serve as a yardstick for up-to-date pronunciation.

The best and shortest ways to flawless (German) diction, is by listening to the spoken (!) text first, repeating it until you can’t get it wrong and then singing it – best of all with the help of a good diction coach (which you may contact here 😊).

Commitment phobics

I don’t do mediocre.

In fact, I always make sure to give everything for my clients. I’m always fully prepared for lessons, I strive to teach German pronunciation understandably. In case we come across something I don’t know, I’ll look it up and tell you all about it as soon as possible. I take my work very seriously and commit fully to help you reaching your full potential in singing German.

AND: I expect clients to also commit fully to their goal – with all that’s necessary to achieve it.

If you are content with a level of German pronunciation that’s just “OK”, I probably won’t be the right coach for you.

If, however, you are committed to your best possible results and if you’re willing and prepared to work as much as it takes to achieve whatever goal you have in diction, then let’s get together! I’m looking forward to working with you!