Shannon Coates - Voice & The Art of Teaching

10/01/2026

Maybe just one more reshare on the topic …

10/01/2026

Thank you for this reflection, Melody Thomas Music Studio.

09/30/2026

So … there’s this slippery little slope we slide down in VoicePedLand ALL THE TIME:

We learn what bodies CAN do.
We observe what bodies OFTEN do.

And then?

We smoosh those two kinds of information together to arrive at what bodies SHOULD do.

Which … gets real prescriptive, real quick.

Because:
“Can do” gives us information about possibility.
“Often does” gives us information about probability.
And “Should do”? Is a value judgement wrapped in a prescription.

Oopsies.

Once we’ve taken that little slide from description into prescription, it becomes VERY easy to use perfectly good information from anatomy, physiology, acoustics, research, and experience (et cetera, et cetera) to tell singers how they are supposed to breathe, stand, support, resonate, phonate, move, learn, and sound...
..for their own good. OBVIOUSLY. 😬

And? Even when the information we’re using to make the prescription is “science-informed” or “evidence-based”?

That STILL doesn’t give us a mandate to decide what singers should do with it.

(I mean, unless we WANT to use our expertise to tell singers what to do … )

But if we’re interested in using our expertise to support student agency?

Then we’ve gotta resist sliding down the slippery “can do + often does = should do” slope.

We’ve gotta figure out how to use good information to ask better questions, expand the options available to students, and help them learn to make increasingly informed choices for themselves.

Because there’s no artistry without agency. And there’s no agency without choices.

And it’s pretty danged hard to learn how to make choices when your teacher spends all day telling you how to use the information instead of helping you learn how to parse it.

Anyhoooo … I wrote about it on my Substack. Go over to “Wait. Where did that SHOULD come from?” to see the whooooole slippery slope in allll its glory.

(Plus a bonus paragraph or two about how we use information from cognitive science and neuroscience to tell students how they SHOULD learn, rather than using that information to support their actual learning. We LOOOOOVE sliding down this particular slope.)

Wanna get some good info about what voices and bodies CAN do and OFTEN do without that side of SHOULD do? Check out The VoicePed 101 Library.

09/28/2026

We’ve just started the Anatomy & Physiology of the Voice section in the undergraduate voice pedagogy class I teach.

And one of the first things I ask my students to watch for is the difference between three kinds of information:
1. What the body can do
2. What the body often does
3. What we think the body should do

I also make them a promise:
I will do my best to teach them the anatomy and physiology of the voice in a non-prescriptive way.

In my new Substack, I’m looking at the slippery slope of perspective teaching (the one where we go from can > often does > should).

Find the article on my Substack (link in bio).

In the meantime, if you're looking to actively work on removing those pesky "shoulds" from your pedagogy, get in touch about my one-on-one voiceped consults. Bring me all the questions, and we'll dive right in. DM me for info.

09/28/2026

Lots of folks in our industry talking about AI-use atm.

Here’s a chance to learn from Canadian education researchers and practitioners.

The OISE Centre for Media, Culture & Education (CMCE) and the McLuhan Foundation present:

CANADIAN CONTEXTS OF CRITICAL AI LITERACY
AI literacy is not just about knowing how to use AI—it’s about knowing what AI is doing to us. This panel explores what Critical AI Literacy could mean across Canadian education, and what teachers need to navigate AI ethically, critically, and contextually. Join is for this Virtual Panel, followed by Q/A.

AI literacy is not just about knowing how to use AI—it’s about knowing what AI is doing to us. This panel explores what Critical AI Literacy could mean across Canadian education, and what teachers need to navigate AI ethically, critically, and contextually. Join is for this virtual panel, follow...

09/26/2026

Heres the opening of my latest Substack article, “Wait. Where did that SHOULD come from?: On science, teaching singing, and the slippery slope into prescriptive teaching”

It’s September so I’m knee-deep in prepping materials and delivering lectures for another undergrad voiceped class (which: kinda my fav).

We just finished Module 1: The Science of Sound and are moving into Module 2: Respiration 101 (followed by - you guessed it - Phonation 101).

One of the things I ask my students to keep an eye out for during our highly Anatomy & Physiology-based first term is the difference between three kinds of information:

1. What the body *can* do
2. What the body *often* does
3. What we think the body *should* do

And? I to them that I will do my best to present allll of this anatomy & physiology through the lens of the first two kinds of information.

Like, we’re gonna talk about what bodies can do, and about what bodies often do in certain circumstances and when coordinating to generate particular tonal outcomes. We’re gonna talk about the patterns, tendencies, possibilities, trade-offs, and choices available to us as we learn to sing, and as we learn how to teach singing.

And we are gonna work VERY HARD not to collapse all of that into:

Therefore, this is what your body should do.

[read the full article on my substack, linked below]

On science, singing, and the slippery slope to prescriptive teaching.

09/23/2026

I started UnderGrad VoicePed with one of my favourite discussion topics of the year: a get-to-know-you exercise that also asks everyone to bring some singing to the table.

Along with introducing themselves, students locate themselves geographically, culturally, and in whatever other ways feel meaningful to them, and then share a clip of a singer or singing tradition to the discussion board.

Students with exclusively Western European heritage are encouraged to seek out Indigenous singing, while students with other cultural heritages share singing connected to those traditions.

And every single year, this introduces me to voices, sounds, languages, musical traditions, and ways of using the voice that I have simply never heard before. Which: GOSH DARNED DELIGHTFUL. Especially in a voiceped class where we’re about to start talking about how voices “work.” I LOOOOVE the immediate reminder of just how many different things human beings actually do with our voices.

And as you listen, I’d love to know:
➡️ What catches your ear?
➡️ What does this singing make you curious about?
➡️ What assumptions about “the singing voice” might shift if this were part of the sound-world we routinely started from?

09/15/2026

Oof. This is a hard read about the industry that supports an art form I love. Hard, but necessary.

(Aaaand … should make all of us involved in institutions that train Western-classical singers do some thinking.)

I am 43-years-old.