Red Flags in Church Music Teaching
A real music teacher produces musicians. A promoter produces loyal followers.
Pious language, titles, tradition, lists of approved elders; all those can confuse and distract. They can hide the difference. But the test is simple: after studying with this person, do you understand music better or do you feel privileged for having entered a closed group, an inner circle?
Here are the warning signs.
Red Flag #1: The “Lower Clergy” Trap
The phrase “lower clergy” is dynamite. Once that language enters the lesson, the student is no longer being formed primarily as a musician. He is being trained into a submissive ecclesiastical identity.
Does your teacher insist on ordinations, blessings, obedience to clergy, and ecclesiastical rank more than pitch, rhythm, notation, modal behavior, phrasing, and voice? Does theology or fable-telling replace actual music theory?
Piety can inspire music. It cannot replace music.
Mentioning historical context or spiritual background is fine. But if half the lesson is about who blessed whom, how many golden coins the Virgin Mary gave to Koukouzelis (!), and which elder said what, and the other half is vague gestures at “feeling the mode,” you’re not learning music. You’re learning submission.
The moment you hear “chanters are lower clergy” during a music lesson, you’re no longer in a music lesson.
Red Flag #2: Guru Lists
If your teacher gives you a list of “acceptable” masters and dismisses everyone else, he’s just managing your loyalties. You’ll know this is happening when:
- Certain names are mentioned with reverence, others with contempt, others not mentioned at all
- You’re told never to listen to X because “he will corrupt your style” or “he’s not traditional“
- Every question is answered with “Stanitsas used to say…” or “This supernatural monk chanted this line brilliantly, here’s a YouTube video…”
- You’re warned against studying with anyone outside the approved circle
This is boundary enforcement. The goal is to make you dependent on the guru network, instead of making you capable of independent musical judgment.
This is a big red flag because a real musician wants you to hear broadly, listen critically, and develop your own ear. A cult promoter wants you to stay inside the fence, to make you grow fond of a specific style. Most of the time, there are serious problems with that specific style (otherwise, why the need to promote?). Other times, there’s political games at play.
Red Flag #3: Reputation Without Skill
Does your teacher actually know music? Can he (or she) actually sing, write, transcribe, analyze, inspire, and correct? You may be surprised to know that titles do not answer that question.
Example 1: A famous professor of musicology was transcribing a Dorian melody and completely missed the descending B♭s. He also didn’t use slurs where he should have in the staff notation. This is basic even for students, let alone a college professor with decades of experience.
Example 2: A famous traditionalist chanter in Greece was demonstrating syllabic Second Tone solmization. Even junior students know this is the Byzantine Mode (D Byzantine). He was pronouncing Vu (E) instead of Pa (D). Wrong key. A rookie mistake.
Example 3: A famous patriarchal chanter, revered by many as the ultimate authority and master of makam Ferahnak, composed a piece with the first part of the preamble “Glory to the Father” in syllabic style and the second part of the same piece “Now and forever” in solemn style. The piece was syllabic. Solemn had no place. Another rookie mistake. A composition student would fail an exam for this.
These are not minor issues. These show foundational incompetence.
You should trust the music more than the reputation. If your teacher has impressive credentials but makes elementary errors, you’re studying with a brand but not a musician.
Red Flag #4: He Can’t Conduct a Choir
This one is revealing because choir conducting is a course supposedly taught and examined, a requirement for a diploma in traditional Byzantine music. Yet everyone seems to have a diploma, and almost nobody knows how to conduct. Conducting is not standing in the middle like a traffic cone, waving your hands up and down. It is a different craft from singing.
Here’s what incompetent conducting looks like:
- The conductor sings with the choir. If you see a conductor singing along with the choir (sometimes even louder), he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s not hearing the balance, tuning, entries, releases, vowels, and dynamics in detail. He’s focused on himself.
- The conductor faces the audience instead of the singers. If he’s facing the people instead of the choir, he’s performing for the camera. Don’t buy the excuse that “this is how traditional chanters look.” A conductor who has no eye contact with the choir loses command. His eyes must be on the singers, not buried in the score and not checking the audience.
- The choir does public apechemata. A trained choir should not need to perform any apechemata openly before a hymn. The conductor gives pitch and tempo discreetly, through gesture or a quiet cue. Public apechema as a crutch usually means: (a) the choir has not been trained to enter cleanly, or (b) the conductor follows a certain traditionalist dogma where the apechema has some sort of spiritual significance.
- Vague, unclear gestures. Conducting gestures must mark rhythm with precision. Many traditionalists conduct as if they are stirring soup in the pot. In real conducting, one hand gives the pulse and the other shapes dynamics, diction, phrasing, entrances, and releases. If both hands are stirring an imaginary pot, the choir is receiving very little information, no matter how charming the abstract motion is.
- Sloppy entries and cutoffs. A choir should enter and release together without lagging or dying out unevenly. If the performance has ragged entrances and messy releases, this points to ineffective rehearsals.
- Closed mouths. Even the best singers in the world can sound out of tune if half the choir sings with open vowels and the other half sings with closed mouths. The harmonics clash, the vowels don’t align, and the chord sounds wrong even when the pitch is perfect. A conductor must insist on unified vowels, open mouths, clean diction, and matched resonance. If one singer refuses, either he is corrected, removed, or the performance is delayed until the ensemble is ready. One closed-mouthed singer alone can muddy the entire ensemble.
The Ultimate Test
Does your teacher make you feel more musical or does he make you feel more accepted?
If it’s the first, he’s a musician. If it’s the second, you may feel good for now, but you are being accepted into a cult. A musician trains your ear, sharpens your pitch, corrects your rhythm, teaches you structure, and makes you capable. A promoter makes you feel part of something, gives you a list of approved names, warns you about outsiders, and keeps you dependent.
After a year of study, ask yourself: Can I do more music than I could before? Or do I just know more about who’s important and who to avoid?
If the answer is the second, you may think you are dealing with a musician but, in reality, you have a handler.