Most of the people who love teaching singing also love singing and people. If they are good teachers, they will hold voices, music and people as being equal and worthy of love and respect.
Love. What is real love? (I know, you can hear a song coming on. Not.)
True love is that which is all-accepting but allows for and understands that which is not perfect. For instance, weather includes all kinds of atmospheric conditions. Some we like, some we don’t, but weather, generically, includes it all. There may be judgement that storms are bad and clear skies are good but any meteorologist will explain to you that we need every bit of what happens in order for things to be normal. Weather just is.
Singing, at its most basic expression, includes all forms of vocalization that people would consider singing. Whether other people agree with their definitions or like them is of no consequence. In the greatest sense, singing just is. What we make of it is up to us. Our constructions consisting of the various value judgements (including many that I have expressed here over the years) are made up. There is no absolute determination of what is or is not singing. Singing exists.
If everyone remembered that, then we could approach each kind of singing to see what it had to reveal, what it could teach us, what it could offer? We could explore the possibilities of that kind of singing to see what the depths and edges of it were. We could regard it with respect and perhaps even admiration. And, if we considered that all singing potentially starts out on equal footing with all other singing (a radical idea), then we could see where our value judgements might be helpful and where they were a waste of time that just got in the way.
So, on Valentine’s Day, remember your love, remember what love is. Don’t forget to sing your sweetie a love song, even if you just make one up. And, if you are a singer or a singing teacher, remember to love the song. Cupid might shoot you with an arrow to make you fall in love with your art all over again!