Shannon Coates - Voice & The Art of Teaching

04/06/2026

In The VoicePed UnDegree and with the student-teachers in the Undergraduate Voice Pedagogy class I teach, we are constantly renegotiating how we deal with the response of uncomfortableness with a new coordination.

Less experienced teachers tend to respond by pivoting away from uncomfortableness because we see our role as always making sure the student is OKAY. And we’re nervous of hurting students, of losing their trust, or what it means about our teaching if they don’t like the sound they’re making.

More experienced teachers tend to go the other way. We override the student’s experience, often using “it’s just the messy middle” or “it’s supposed to feel uncomfortable” or “it’s going to get worse before it gets better” as justification.

Buuuut here’s the thing, :
Neither of those responses actually supports the kind of student learning that allows them to make choices for themselves.

One communicates that being uncomfortable is to be avoided at all costs … so students never learn how to ‘stick with it’ to fully acquire a new coordination.
The other communicates that your perceptions don’t matter … so students learn not to listen to themselves and that only their teacher can tell them if they have acquired the coordination or not.

SO … what do we do instead?

We stay with the experience. We treat the student’s “I don’t like this” as data (not as a problem to fix or to be ignored).
We validate (OH! That’s interesting - thanks for letting me know.)
We get curious (How do you know when you are comfortable? What IS working?)
We help them negotiate it (5% more comfort. Earlier exit. Slower transition.)

The real learning is in developing the capacity to negotiate through the messy middle. NOT in avoiding discomfort. NOT in overriding it.

And when students learn how to do that? They don’t just get the new coordination; they get agency.

Reach out about how to book a VoicePed Consult (or several) and we can map this out in real life.

If consults aren’t on the table right now, start in The VoicePed 101 Library:
➡️ How We Learn 101
➡️ Diagnosis 101

Curious: what do *you* tend to do when a student says “I don’t like this”?

03/27/2026

Two years ago around this time, I delivered a few live classes on neurodiversity-affirming VoicePed … the replays of those classes now live in The VoicePed 101 Library. Missed out on the live classes (or wanna brush up)? Join the library for only $97 and watch / rewatch to your heart’s content.

https://drshannoncoates.com/the-voiceped-101-library/

03/23/2026

We’ve (rightly!) started encouraging parents of our students to move away from offering feedback on their kids’ performances and to start prompting them around self-reflection instead.

AND?

In our haste to ensure that parents are not giving feedback that communicates an assessment of the quality of the performance (whether it’s negative or positive), we’ve villainized ALL feedback and inadvertently prompted parents to skip the feedback that is essential to creating the conditions under which students will have the best chance to do meaningful self-reflection.

Because, before reflection, there needs to be the kind of feedback that communicates intrinsic value by stating the impact of the performance.

Here’s what THAT looks like:
❤️ I love watching you perform
❤️ I was so moved during xyz
❤️ I had fun listening to you

This feedback type does not communicate an assessment of the quality of the performance; it communicates intrinsic value and impact:
❤️ you are seen
❤️ you are known
❤️ what you did had an impact

Once that is communicated, we’ve created the conditions for meaningful, regulated, safe self-reflection.

Impact THEN reflection.

(And if you’d like to work more on supporting both parents and students (and yourself!) in these moments without defaulting to evaluation or skipping to reflection? Reach out for info on how to book a VoicePed consult or two. I’m here for it.)

03/17/2026

One thing singers often encounter after performances?

Feedback they did not ask for. ( )

Sometimes it’s positive.
Sometimes it’s “constructive.”
Sometimes it’s wildly inappropriate.

And sometimes it comes from people who hold real or perceived authority in the field.

One small (but really big) thing we can do as teachers is help singers prepare for these moments.

Like, practically. By LITERALLY rehearsing how they might respond when someone approaches them with unsolicited feedback.

Because when singers know this can happen *and* they have a plan for responding?

They’re far less likely to get dysregulated in the moment (whether they’re getting positive OR negative feedback).

➡️ They know they have options.
➡️ They know they can set boundaries.
➡️ They know they are not required to engage.

I’m curious about a few things:
Voice teachers: are you already preparing students for situations like this?

If you are, what kinds of responses or scripts have you developed with your students?

And also…
What’s this bringing up for you?

Anyone else dealing with the ol’ patriarchy whisper that says that this approach is RUDE or DISRESPECTFUL …?

Interesting, eh?

Would love to hear how you’re navigating that both for you and your students.

And? If situations like this are coming up in your studio - or you want to work on performance preparation that supports student agency - this is exactly the kind of thing we can unpack in VoicePed Consults.

Bring your real teaching situations (messy is my specialty).
I’ll help you map out multiple ways you might approach them.

📩 Reach out if you want to book a consult (or a series of them).

03/17/2026

You hear power pop vocals …
I see ideal vocal tract shaping for same …

Don’t let anyone tell you the way to access those crystal-clear tops is by keeping the back of the neck long and maintaining a north-south mouth shape.

Cuz that’s a misunderstanding of how the vocal instrument coordinates to create the sounds you’re hearing in this clip.

(Wanna know more? All five modules of The Vocal Instrument 101 are now live in The VoicePed 101 library. Link in bio. Of course.)

03/13/2026

In The VoicePed UnDegree, we’re currently working through The Vocal Instrument 101, and lemme tell ya:
💡lots of lights are going on. (or off?)

So much learning and UNlearning happening.

Something that came up today, as we worked through the Resonance lecture, was:
“Forward placement” isn’t actually an objective physiological reality.

True story.

And? I’m not saying the term is useless. (or wrong, obvs)

HOWEVER: like the concepts of “chest voice” and “head voice,” the phrase *forward placement* can live in a very useful realm:
👉 I perceive something happening here
👉 That perception helps guide my coordination.

That’s a powerful teaching tool.

But somewhere along the way, the term got coopted to denote:
❌ This is literally what is happening.
❌ This is what singers should be doing.

And those two uses are not the same.

The moment we start treating perceptual language as if it’s describing physiological reality, we slide into prescriptive teaching reaaaal quick.

(Which, by the way, “prescriptive teaching” isn’t the enemy per se … it’s just one more manifestation of not having any choices in our own teaching. When we understand how to work in agency-supporting ways, we understand that we can choose when to use a more “diagnose and prescribe” methodology appropriately, rather than reflexively.)

SO, that’s why I deliver The Vocal Instrument 101 in the way that I do: to both understand the anatomy and physiology of singing so we can work in a more exploratory way in the studio AND to recognize and reframe the prescriptions we were handed about the singing process that are negatively impacting our ability to work in the student-centred, agency-supporting way we all aspire to.

If that kind of exploration interests you:
All five modules of The Vocal Instrument 101 are now available inside The VoicePed 101 Library.

You can start anytime and work through the material at your own pace.
~20 hours of lectures
quizzes to consolidate learning
downloadable slides + resources

Link in comments.

03/09/2026

On, International Women’s Day …

𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐘 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋 𝐖𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍'𝐒 𝐃𝐀𝐘
𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐝, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔

My first real memory of International Women’s Day is 2020. I was playing a recital I loved to play with pianist Hanchien Lee. We played in some fancy place in Washington DC, a program of all women composers. They hired us because they wanted a program of all women everything for this day. We had played it many times and in many places, but this was the last time I played in public for a long time, so I remember the whole event quite well. Some people were keeping their distance after the concert and not shaking hands. I thought it was super weird. But I also remember the concert being a lovely experience and wish I were reliving it right now.

Since then, I’ve enjoyed writing essays on this day and following (and mocking, and rating) the classical music community’s response to this day. I just don’t think I have it in me this year.

For example, the classical music community is currently fixated on the news of the Boston Symphony’s Music Director, Andris Nelsons, not being renewed after like 15 years or something as MD. Maybe he didn’t live up to his initial potential. It’s international news. Who cares. For me, he’s just another white dude conductor I’ll probably never play for and don’t care if I do or don’t. Yawn.

In the past, I might have told you that the orchestra presented a program this weekend, programmed certainly a year or more in advance, completely ignoring the holiday and the month: all Brahms with another white dude conductor, this one 98 years old. I might have commented that people say the younger white dude MD wasn’t presenting the revolution they wanted. And then I’d say, guess who they’re going to hire to replace him? Guess? I don’t know his name, but it’s gonna be another white dude.

But somehow I am fatigued this year and other people are saying better things. I read recently a piece by Kate Manne entitled “If We Cared About Girls.” And this morning, I read, “It’s time we stop asking warlords how to prevent war. And start asking women.” by Celeste Davis. These are better than anything I have to mock in classical music right now.

We’re so upset that Timothée Chalamet dissed ballet and opera by saying that “no one cares” about them, because it hits a little too close to home for everyone in my world of the arts. Those of us who work in art forms which don’t pay for themselves with ticket sales often feel like what we do lacks value, or at least, we have a hard time dealing with it when people say that to us. And they say it a lot. It’s hard to reason with people who value money above all else about things which are more valuable than money. We are always struggling to assert our relevance.

What I do know, Classical Music, is that we will cease to be relevant if we continue our refusal to include women in a real way. Women are the majority everywhere, but often in Big Fancy Music schools as well. If we can’t accidentally program concerts with all women headliners all year long like we do with men, and when we do, it’s only for show; or we only put one woman composer and conductor on one show in March; or we won’t even consider hiring a woman as a leader in an important position, Timothée is right. No one will care in the end, because it will be an art form that does not value the humanity of a majority of the population.

And I also know that we will kill ourselves off outside of classical music, too, with our obsession with men in power. They are literally blowing people up, shooting them, and making war.

Now, I will go contemplate a man’s word, one from Gustav Mahler before a solo I will play today: Ermüdet. It means tired and fatigued and I haven’t managed to convey that as I have wished to yet. It’s how I feel about this fu***ng holiday, and the need for this fu***ng holiday, and the fact that we are where we are, in the year of your Lord, 2026. (It’s not the year of my Lord. I have no Lord, no gods, just prayer candles made by kids in the pandemic.)

03/08/2026

🙌

On , we have plenty to celebrate! We are extremely proud to be able to say that this season's operas have all been directed by women — Mo Zhou (Madama Butterfly), Mieko Ouchi (Little Red Riding Hood), Brenna Corner (Hansel and Gretel), and Elizabeth Stepkowski Tarhan (The Barber of Seville) bring stories to life, and we're lucky to have them do it on our stages.

Who are the women in opera who make you proud? Shout out in the comments, and let's keep the celebration going! 💪🚺⚧️🎶

03/06/2026

Yes! Noticing the pattern is step one. ❤️