• A song you have never heard before - puzzled woman wearing headphones listening against a pink background

How to Teach a Song You Have Never Heard

Working with unfamiliar styles without losing authority

A student walks in with a song you have never heard.

It’s from a genre you don’t usually teach. It’s recorded by someone you wouldn’t normally listen to. And the score doesn’t match what they’re singing.

What now?

Don’t bluff. Ask.

Start by asking:

  • What do you love about this song?

  • Who else have you heard sing it?

  • What are you trying to emulate?

  • What feels difficult about it?

  • What do you want it to sound like?

The student knows the song better than you do. Let them be the expert. Your job is to help them get there safely and confidently.

Use comparison to unlock sound

Go online and find:

  • A studio version

  • A live version

  • A cover version in a different genre

Ask:

  • What’s different about the rhythm and phrasing?

  • Which version feels closest to your voice?

  • What version do you not like—and why?

This teaches taste, analysis, and stylistic awareness without you needing to know the genre inside out.

Apply what you know

Even if the style is new, your knowledge still applies. Each time you listen, focus on one thing:

  • Vocal fold closure

  • Airflow strategies

  • Onsets and offsets

  • Resonance tuning

  • Consonant placement

  • Lyric pacing

It may be a song you have never heard, but you have the skills to analyse and reproduce elements of it.

And one last thing. DON’T JUDGE.

Your opinion of the singer doesn’t matter here. You don’t need to know the genre perfectly. You do need to know your student and how they think and learn.

Your job when faced with a song you have never heard is to help them break it down and find the style, sound, breath patterns, resonance and lyric use in their own voice. That’s it.

Want to know how to do that quicker?

Join our Teacher Accreditation programme. We’re building Cohort 26 right now, so book a Discovery Call with Gillyanne and let’s see if we can upgrade your listening and analytical skills and match you up to the best training resources.

PS AI came up with a list of tags for me to add to the post so that people could find it. My favourite so far?

“New genre who dis?”

I feel that one.