While studio-based instrumental and vocal learning is widely regarded as both important and effective in higher education music, research to date has offered little concrete information about studio practices that students have regarded as ineffective. Two recent case studies investigated what appear to be exceptional instances in which students expressed dissatisfaction with the approaches taken by their current teachers. In this paper, data from these studies is mined again, focusing particularly on verbal behaviour from semi-structured interviews. The two studies are compared with each other and with data from a broader study from which they had been drawn, asking how the "dissonant" cases are distinct, and how student interviews might cast fresh light on the complexities of studio practices.