Anna G. – Artist
To Give Welfare Foundation – DASBIEN
It happened to me in 2023. Conservatory of singing, Lima. A twenty-one-year-old soprano—let's call her Camila—with ten years of vocal training, roles in youth operas, a voice cataloged as a "promise of bel canto." Her performances were technically impeccable: perfect intonation, controlled breathing, disciplined vibrato. But when I met her, she wasn't singing. Not due to vocal cord injury. Due to paralyzing stage fright.
"My teacher says I have the most beautiful instrument in the class. That I must take care of it, not force it, not risk it. And so I sing with fear. Every high note is a threat. Every pianissimo, a test of control. And when I finish, I don't remember feeling anything. Only having survived. The last performance, before going on, I vomited. And no one knew. Because 'that's how artists are, nervous.'"
Camila was in the red ZIE of technical overprotection: Zone of Balanced Interaction where the care of the instrument had become a prison of expression. The school subjectivized the voice: it studied its physiology, its acoustics, its health. But it did not subjectivize Camila: it did not find out what she wanted to say with her singing, what emotion she needed to transmit, what risk she was willing to take to be an artist. It intended with protection: technique, control, precaution. But it did not feedback: it did not verify whether vocal care arrived as well-being, or as malevolence disguised as preservation that suffocated the soul of singing.
And here enters the paradox of malevolence by Figueroa (2026): not that the teacher was ill-intentioned. But her practice, in pursuing institutional well-being—reputation, vocal longevity, "serious training"—at the cost of the student's expressive well-being, generated collateral damage that she did not see. Technical overprotection, fear of error, the annulment of the emotional body: all of this, although "effective" for preserving the voice, left the singer paralyzed, disconnected, with no reason to step on stage.
This led me to ask: why do singing schools lose voices just when they need them most? Why does the student, despite being "talented," stop singing, stop risking, stop feeling?
The Myth of the Voice as Instrument
Classical vocal pedagogy glorifies the "technical" singer: the one who controls, who protects, who "disappears" behind the score and tradition. This narrative, apparently one of care, hides a trap: it confuses the preservation of the instrument with the annulment of the interpreter. The singer becomes a vocal cord without a body, beautiful sound without a soul.
But Dasbien Theory is clear: every sustainable relationship requires mutual well-being measured by both parties (Figueroa, 2025). And the singer-voice relationship, although asymmetrical in learning, is no exception. The student needs to feel that her voice is hers, that technique serves expression, that risk is part of art. And the school, to train sustainable singers, needs artists who want to keep singing their whole lives, not just until the next performance.
When this fails, what Figueroa describes as structured malevolence appears: not conscious evil, but damage systematized by the very logic of teaching. The teacher, in her eagerness for institutional well-being (results, reputation, "healthy voice"), generates damage in the student (panic, emptiness, disconnection from singing) that ends up eroding her own well-being (loss of students, demotivation, opera without emotion).
Camila had technique, but not freedom. She had a preserved voice, but not a lived voice. She had control, but not courage.
The Three Symptoms of Structured Malevolence in Singing Teaching
Based on cases like Camila's, I propose detectable signs before abandonment or psychogenic vocal crisis:
| Symptom | Indicator | What the school doesn't see |
|---|---|---|
| "Machine" singer | Perfect technique, but generic interpretation, no emotional risk, no "moment of truth" | The student has learned that her subjectivity is dangerous; the ZIE breaks due to excess control without expression |
| Chronic pre-stage panic | Paralyzing anxiety before performances, not from lack of preparation, but from fear of judgment | The process was so critical that the body rebels; malevolence in the "demand for perfection" |
| Isolation from emotion | Sings demanding repertoire, but doesn't listen to music "for pleasure," doesn't sing "for herself," doesn't improvise | Singing has become a test, not a language; the student has no space to be a person |
Camila had all three. But the school only measured: intonation, projection, "vocal health," roles obtained.
Intervention: Rebuilding the ZIE in Singing Teaching
In another school, similar in level but different in pedagogy, I applied an adapted DASBIEN protocol:
1. Subjectivize the student beyond technique: the question of "what do you risk"
Not only score analysis, but encounter with intention: "If this aria were your last song, what would you say? What emotion is so great that it needs this risk?"
Revealing answer from another soprano: "I want to sing the pain of my grandmother, who could never cry. But they tell me it's 'too personal,' that I must 'control.'" Information that changes the class: space for "too personal," for body that remembers, for technique that serves memory, not that represses it.
2. Intend expressive adjustments: technique at the service of the emotional body
Design exercises where technique adapts to emotion, not the other way around: singing with eyes closed, improvising melody over text, singing "badly" on purpose to release control. And for the teacher: supervision of her own control anxiety, space to say "this student scares me with her intensity" without repressing her.
This is not lax vocal teaching. It is expressive ZIE: technique that cares for the emerging voice, not that suffocates it.
3. Feedback systematically: the closing question
At the end of each interpretation, the same question: "Did you feel alive in this? Or were you a well-trained voice? What do you need to be both?" And for the teacher: "Did this student leave us something as a school? Do we need to adjust how we teach?"
The result: in two years, student retention rose 50%. Not because less technique was demanded, but because it was demanded with expressive care. And Camila, in this school, could finally say: "Now I know I can take care of my voice and risk my soul. It is not a contradiction."
Proposal for Singing Schools: Three Anti-Malevolence Practices
First: the mandatory "moment of truth"
In each cycle, the student must present an interpretation where emotional risk is visible: not chaos, but vulnerability. The teacher listens first, then embraces, then—if necessary—technique.
Second: the weekly "body pause"
Time where the student sings without evaluation: song from her land, from her childhood, from her pain. Just to connect with the voice as her own. And then name: "What did your body feel? What would you like to sing like this on stage?"
Third: the registry of healing songs
Document not only roles obtained, but moments where singing was well-being: who sang crying, who improvised for the first time, who found her grandmother in a note. Name this in class. Make visible that technique without emotion is not art.
Closing: The School Camila Didn't Have
Camila from the first conservatory abandoned opera. She now sings in a community choir, "technically imperfect" according to her old teachers, but "alive" according to her. She told me: "I miss the perfection. But I don't miss vomiting before going on."
The previous school lost her not for lack of talent. For undetected structured malevolence. For confusing preservation with suffocation. For believing that a good singer is one who doesn't need to risk.
Dasbien Theory, and the paradox of malevolence, offer us a way out: subjectivize the student as a legitimate artist, intend processes that don't silence to "care," feedback systematically to close the circuit of expressive well-being.
Singing schools that want to be truly formative—not only in technique, but in artists—need to incorporate this dimension. Before another Camila stops singing, or worse, sings without living.
References
Figueroa Cárdenas, A. K. (2010). Das Bien. Fondo Editorial UNMSM.
Figueroa Cárdenas, A. K. (2025). Theory of Dasbien Life. Editorial Tecnologías Dasbien.
Figueroa Cárdenas, A. K. (2026). La paradoja de la malevolencia: cómo el daño interpersonal erosiona el propio bienestar psicológico del perpetrador [The paradox of malevolence: how interpersonal damage erodes the psychological well-being of the perpetrator]. Working paper, To Give Welfare Foundation – DASBIEN.
Austin, J. (2009). Vocal authority: Singing, aesthetics, and the voice in performance. PhD Dissertation, Columbia University.