Some careers are built on talent. Others are built on grit. After 64 years of teaching, and a lifetime of performing opera, light opera, Gilbert & Sullivan and music theatre, Janice has seen enough voices pass through her studio to know which of the two actually carries people through. Her answer might surprise you.
In this wide-ranging chat, she shares the sentence that changed her life at 24, why she refuses to let students skip sight-singing, how she organised ten student concerts a year, and what Dame Helen Medlyn taught her about the difference between a good voice and a great career.
1. The Sentence That Changed Everything: Unlocking Vocal Potential
Keywords: vocal potential, voice development, singing lessons, finding a singing teacher*
Janice grew up being told she had a “lovely voice.” She won every part she auditioned for. But every compliment came with a phrase she didn’t understand: “You have so much potential.”
The penny dropped during a production of The Pirates of Penzance. Kneeling at Frederic’s feet with the flu, she realised the Pirate King had been holding his voice back the entire run just so she could be heard. Soon after, a mentor said one sentence that rewired her life: “What a beautiful voice. If only you knew what to do with it.”
That was the moment she understood “potential” meant unused capacity: a voice that had never been properly built. She went looking for a real teacher, and found Muriel Gale (famous for singing the alto solo at London’s Albert Hall), who put her back on pure exercises for a year. After years of leading roles, that year of “doing nothing but exercises” changed everything.
Takeaway for singers: A pretty voice is not a trained voice. If people keep using the word potential about you, take it as a signal, not a compliment.
2. From Classroom Teacher to Full-Time Voice Coach: The Dual Career
Keywords: singing teacher career, voice teacher, school teaching, transitioning careers*
Janice spent decades doing two demanding jobs at once: deputy principal at a school by day, voice teacher and performer by night. She’d be at school by 8am, home for a rest, then into the theatre. The hardest part, she says, wasn’t the workload. It was getting the adrenaline down after a show so she could sleep and be back at school in the morning.
She taught part-time for almost two decades before going full-time in 1992, a leap encouraged by her student Lisa, a twice-awarded Best Actress whose career gave Janice the push she needed. At her peak, she taught 60 students a week, kept their names on a list by the piano, and still ran ten recitals a year.
Takeaway for teachers: You don’t have to quit your day job the moment you start teaching. A slow build, letting the singing income grow to match the teaching income, is a legitimate path.
3. Why Attitude Beats Talent Every Time
Keywords: singer mindset, singing career, resilience, performer psychology, hunger to succeed*
Whenever Janice got excited about a new student’s voice, her former pupil Dame Helen Medlyn (who stayed with her between international gigs) would cut her off with the same line:
“I don’t want to hear about their voice. I only want to hear about their hunger.”
Janice has taught beautiful voices that never went anywhere because they lacked humility, drive, or resilience. She’s also taught modest voices that became world-class careers because the person refused to quit.
Her verdict on performing as a profession is blunt: 98% of performers are out of work. How many people can handle a hundred rejections in a row? Only the ones with something burning underneath the talent.
Takeaway: Talent opens the door. Attitude decides whether you walk through it, and whether you stay on the other side.
4. When Should Kids Start Singing Lessons?
Keywords: when to start singing lessons, children singing, young voice training, healthy vocal habits*
The old rule (“girls at 16, altos at 18”) cost Janice an entire octave when she was young. Her mother delayed her lessons following that advice, and Janice lost her top notes (something Dame Janet Baker famously struggled with too).
Today she takes a different view. If a child is going to sing, nothing will stop them. So the goal isn’t to delay; it’s to make sure the habits they form are healthy ones:
- Correct breathing from the start
- Proper vocal placement
- No straining or pushing
- An understanding that this is their voice to build, not a teacher’s project to shape
Takeaway for parents: The question isn’t “Is my child old enough?” It’s “Will this teacher protect my child’s voice while it develops?”
5. The Lost Art of Sight-Reading and Music Theory
Keywords: sight-singing, music theory for singers, aural training, reading music, singer musicianship*
Janice is passionate, almost fierce, about this one. Singers, she says, have become known as the worst musicians in the room compared to instrumentalists, and the reason is simple: backing tracks, karaoke, and lyric videos have made it possible to “sing” without ever reading a note.
Her star pupils (several of whom now sing professionally overseas) all share one trait in their early exam records: full marks in sight-singing and aural, every time.
Why it matters:
- Professional choirs rehearse a piece once and record it the second time. That’s only possible with fluent readers.
- Music theatre auditions hand you a score and give you five minutes. No reading, no job.
- When the lyrics disappear from the screen and the stage lights come up, the music is the only map you have.
Takeaway: Sight-reading isn’t optional extra work. It’s the difference between being a singer and being a complete musician.
6. Using Nerves as Fuel: An Audition Secret
Keywords: performance nerves, audition tips, stage fright, pre-performance routine*
Janice never walked into an audition calm; she walked in bigger.
Sitting in the waiting room, she’d deliberately let her energy grow, and grow, and grow, until by the time she entered the room she was already “right on the top of where I could be.” The nerves were still there, but they’d been converted into presence.
It’s essentially the coping technique modern voice teachers use today: nerves and excitement present identically in the body, so the goal isn’t to eliminate the feeling; it’s to relabel it and use it. She figured it out on her own, in the middle of the 20th century, without a book or a YouTube video.
Takeaway: If you’re not nervous, you don’t care enough. The job is to learn to ride the nerves, not suppress them.
7. The Power of Performance Experience: Why She Ran 10 Concerts a Year
Keywords: student concerts, performance practice, stage experience, mock performances*
Most teachers manage one or two recitals a year. Janice ran eight to ten. Her logic was simple: you cannot learn performance in a lesson. You can only learn it on a stage.
Her rule for students was beautiful: at every performance, try to do one thing you’ve never done before. Walk on as if you own the stage. Keep your knees still. Hold a look. Breathe into a phrase you usually rush. One small win per concert, stacked over years, is what builds a performer.
She tells a story about a student who bombed a comedy number at a studio concert (Always a Bridesmaid) and realised her timing was completely off. A week later, at the big regional competition, she nailed it and won the top prize. Without that “failed” studio performance, she’d never have won.
Janice also invited her professional former students to sing at these concerts so younger singers could see, up close, what “the level” actually looks like, and watch pros handle backstage nerves.
Takeaway: Every single performance teaches you something, but only if you walk in with something specific you’re trying to learn.
8. What Makes a Great Singing Teacher?
Keywords: how to choose a singing teacher, voice teacher qualities, teaching philosophy, empathy in teaching*
Two things, Janice says, are non-negotiable:
First, you have to have sung. Not dabbled. Sung. Oratorios, opera, musicals, television, recitals. She is constantly asked, even now, “But did you ever sing yourself?” and finds the question baffling. You cannot coach someone through a feeling you’ve never had. Academic knowledge of the voice is not the same as having stood in the wings with a racing heart and walked out anyway.
Second, you have to be trustworthy. Singing is not like learning the piano; students aren’t handing you an external instrument. They’re handing you their soul, their body, and their identity. That requires empathy, and it requires a teacher who earns trust before demanding it.
Takeaway for students choosing a teacher: Ask about their performing life, not just their credentials. Ask yourself whether you feel safe enough in the room to sound bad. Both answers matter.
Final Thought: If She Could Tell Her Younger Self One Thing
Asked what she’d tell her younger self, Janice paused, and then said she wouldn’t change a thing. The fact that she’d sung everything (oratorio, opera, light opera, musicals, television) meant that whoever walked into her studio, she could meet them where they were.
“You’ve got to walk the walk first. Otherwise, you’ve got no idea what that singer is going through.”
Sixty-four years in, that’s still the through-line. Build the voice. Build the musicianship. Build the attitude. And never stop being a singer yourself.