Not long after the New Year began in 2026, something quite unexpected happened.At Christmas, which we celebrated in December, I opened an envelope containing a present from Santa. Inside was some money, along with a message saying, “Please use this for music lessons.”
Once the Christmas holidays had come and gone, and everyday life had returned around the middle of January—somehow feeling a little less colourful than it had during the holidays—I started thinking about what kind of lessons I might take.
After giving it some thought, I realised that although I had been singing in a church choir since I was a child, I had always wanted to learn properly how to use my voice. So I asked one of my fellow singers for the contact details of a singing teacher.
As I was looking around on the internet, using keywords along the lines of “singing, voice, learning”, the name Voice Study Centre came up in the search results. It turned out to be an organisation that conducts research not only into vocal techniques for singers, but also into areas such as speech and language therapy, acting, broadcasting and other fields related to the voice. I came across information about its Master’s programme in Voice Pedagogy, accredited by the University of Essex.
Why would a harmonica player like me need to study voice pedagogy?
To me, it actually feels quite natural, although it is not easy to explain why.
But with only two weeks until the application deadline, I somehow managed to complete the application, went through an interview, and my life as a student will begin in March. The entire course is online, allowing me to continue my performing career and all my other activities alongside my studies.
Things have ended up becoming considerably bigger in scale than the “music lessons” Santa had in mind. I imagine Santa may be watching the whole thing unfold with some nervous curiosity!