Latest / Radiant Voices / Finding Your Voice Beyond Technique | Dr Shannon Coates
Transcript
- speaker-0: to my mind what this understanding of truly how to teach student led practices, trauma informed, lots of overlap. find coaching, lots of coaching overlap in student led practices, obviously neurodiversity affirming, gender affirming, lots of overlap, decolonization, lots of overlap in terms of pedagogy. The kind of pedagogy that I think is great. That student led pedagogy means that anyone can teach. And I would argue that you are going to be a more effective teacher even if you are really experienced and you know all of this stuff if you reframe and start to work with more student-led in more student-led ways. speaker-1: I just want to say welcome to everyone. Good morning. Very, very excited to have Dr. Shannon Coates with me. I've been following her work for a long time. I studied her Voiceped 101 course. I've learned a few things from her. She is an expert in vocal pedagogy as well as a voice teacher and a singer. I'm really excited to have her here. She's got lots of nuances that I think we're going to find really interesting. As many of you know out there, ⁓ the people who follow my work are both voices looking to emerge into their fullness, to liberate themselves, to find how beautiful they can become as if they weren't beautiful enough already, but even more shiny and beautiful. But also I work with educators and teachers and psychotherapists and healers of all sorts who are looking to either heal their own voices or help their clients liberate theirs. So Shannon, huge welcome. Thank you for being here today. So welcome, Shannon. I'd love to just start with for everyone, what is vocal pedagogy and who does it serve? speaker-0: Well, yeah, let's start with, let's just start there with all the big questions. Let's go. ⁓ Interestingly, so the term pedagogy, I say interestingly, who knows? Let's see. The term pedagogy, we in the voice pedagogy world have kind of co-opted it to mean, how do we teach singing essentially, right? Or the art of teaching and in my case, the art and science of teaching. And we kind of co-opted that term from education circles and the original, ⁓ does not, we now use it to mean all teaching anybody just so long as we are teaching how to sing, right? So we use it that way. That is not how it is originally understood or how it's understood in sort of traditional educational circles either, right? That is not the way that your traditional education circles understand that term. But that is the way that we now use it over here in Voice Education land. speaker-1: So it's really the teaching of sorry, the teaching of teaching of voice. speaker-0: So yes, I mean, my sort of tagline is the art and science of. that is the, yes, both the understanding of how to teach voice. And I have, you know, lots of thoughts about that because we tend to also conflate pedagogy or how to teach voice with anatomy and physiology of voice, right? So we tend to in voice pedagogy circles. and lots of voice pedagogy courses do this, where we say, here's the anatomy and physiology of the voice, here's what's happening when you sing, here's where the muscles of the larynx are, here's the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, here's how respiration works, et cetera. And we say, now you know voice pedagogy, but no, you just know anatomy and physiology. And so the art and science of actually teaching, that's a whole separate thing. And again, we often conflate those. And I think there's a lot of I think we have some issues that come out of that. I think there's some confusion and some misunderstandings about what it means to be an effective teacher when we conflate those two things. speaker-1: That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, anatomy and physiology would be quite a small range of it and actually teaching people to sing fluently is obviously a massive discipline. I'm curious though, like when you say teaching singing, so let's just say we'll leave the anatomy and physiology to the one side for the moment. Although, Voiceped 101 has a whole bunch of anatomy physiology in it, which I found fabulous. That's where I learnt the best version that I know of the anatomy and physiology of singing. which was really wonderful. But then there's this whole thing about teaching people singing. How much of vocal pedagogy, as you know it, is about teaching singers and turning them into super athletes versus the large trance of people who consider themselves not singers or want to be singers and to help them to even feel like a singer. speaker-0: Yeah. Let me say, first of all, just point of clarification. The course that I do on anatomy and physiology is called the vocal instrument 101. So that is the vocal instrument 101. that is anatomy and physiology delivered through a non-prescriptive lens. Comes to back to speaker-1: rights speaker-0: pedagogy and how we teach and the information we think we need to be able to teach and also the information that our students think they need in order to be able to sing well, right? And big quotes there in order to be able to sing well. So that is part of the reason that I make that really strong differentiation there is that I want folks to understand that when we are getting anatomy and physiology information, the person who is delivering that information it matters what their lens is. So if their lens is that you as a teacher will teach best if you tell people what to do with their bodies and students will learn best if they know what to do with their bodies and if someone is telling them what to do with their bodies, then they will deliver the anatomy and physiology information through a very prescriptive lens. Here's what has to happen. Here's how you must do it in order to sing the best. Here's what a good posture looks like. Here's what, you all of those things will be delivered through this very prescriptive and frankly, misogynistic, racist, colonialist, all of those lenses, right? Because that is, because the lens through which we think teaching and learning occurs is through this, tell you what to do. and I tell you whether you've done it right or wrong. And then that's how you know whether you are a good singer is when I have told, when you've done everything I've told you to do and you are now doing it the way I told you to do it, right? So to come back to your sort of super athletes versus anybody who wants to just sing and, you know, use their instrument ⁓ in the way that they want to use their instrument. I think that also aligns with what I was just saying, right? There's a relationship there in terms of how we view our role as an educator and also the role of the student in a learning environment. So if we view our role as an educator, again, prescriptive, telling people what to do, making sure they know what's right and wrong, and also then assessing whether they've done it right or wrong, we are going to, first of all, think that the way for us to be the best teachers we can be is to have as much anatomy and physiology information as possible so we can diagnose and prescribe accurately, right? So we can, we've got a good diagnostic tools and we can prescribe well. So, and then we, we all, so then we think that The best way to assess whether or not we are good teachers is if we are developing super athletes. If we are developing, right? So we start to go, ⁓ well, the best way to know whether I'm a good teacher or not is whether all of my students get the auditions, whether all of my students are, you know, they get into the band they want to get in, whether all of my students are in the shows, whether they win the festivals, whether they... do well on the exams, all of those things, right? That is the only way then that we have to assess whether or not we are effective teachers. And while that can be an assessment for sure, that can be an assessment and also as a student, that can be a way to assess whether or not that teacher is the right teacher for you, right? Sure. Those are lots of ways to sort of, that is our way. The problem is when that is the only way that we have to assess whether or not we are teaching, because it leads to you only wanting to work with singers who want to do like the big things that will get you recognition as a teacher. And it leads to you only teaching in this very prescriptive way or it can, where you are like, nope, you have to sing this way or else you won't get the audition. You have to do this or else you won't get this thing. And I won't look good or I won't know that I'm a good teacher. speaker-1: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. No, it really does. speaker-0: Right. So, lens. How do I view my role as the teacher and how do I view the most effective way for singers to learn? Like, how do I view those two things? And that really impacts then outcomes in terms of who we want to work with as teachers. Or we then denigrate ourselves in a way to, well, I'm not a very good teacher. I don't know very much about XYZ thing. and or I've never sung in that style or I've never done, you know, X, Y, Z thing. And so I don't know what I'm doing. So therefore I should only work with people who don't want to have a career in singing. I should only work with and we sort of put ourselves in this weird like, I don't know, I'm not as good. Right. And then we view the singers we work with in that way or we can, right. We can start to work, view the singers. all of the singers who make up by the way like 90%, I'm sure I'm just making up stats here, but you know, make up the vast majority of people who want to take singing lessons, not, okay, so. speaker-1: Yes. No, no, you know, just going to reflect back to you, you know, I had a wonderful conversation with Dr. Maxwell Rani, who's the head of contemporary African dance at the University of Cape Town. And he talked about really decolonized dance. And it really reminds me of what you're saying where really what you know, what they were doing as opposed to the traditional ballet school was they were welcoming all different shapes and sizes and bodies. And really what they what they felt the outcome after three years of dance training was can this body express in the most evolved, self-expressing, beautiful way that that is natural to them who they are through dance? Can they fundamentally let their being out through dance rather than being ⁓ perfect ballerinas. It sounds like what you're saying is that there's an evolution happening in vocal teaching and vocal pedagogy. I would you want to go back a whole lot, where do we get all of or most of ⁓ vocal pedagogy from historically? Where does all this methodology originally come from? speaker-0: I think that when we look historically at pedagogy for, at how and why we developed pedagogy for voice, we started from Western classical styles, which Western classical styles require a very specific kind of coordination because they are not amplified and we are singing on stage with orchestration, with choirs, with a loud tenor, whatever it is, right? Like we're singing on stage with all of these other things in halls that are not amplified. And so these, and they became larger and larger spaces as we got, you know, bigger instruments and more instrumentation. And so the voices needed to be more and more coordinated in very specific ways in order to be heard and cut through orchestras. So that requires a very specific kind of coordination and all other styles, almost all other styles are amplified or done in smaller groups or in natural amplification areas, right? So all other styles currently Most of them are amplified, but lots are not. if they are not amplified, again, we're doing in acoustic settings where we're doing in smaller groups and or we're in natural amplification ⁓ areas of natural amplification. So what happened is because and this is super general and super like I'm making broad generalizations here, but what happened is because we. Amplified, if you will, this art form for royalty, primarily in Western European civilizations, because Eastern civilizations have their own form of classical music, right? That is part of the thing that I try to say every time I talk about classical music, is I'm like, this is Western classical music, right? There are lots of other kinds of classical music out there. And when we just say classical music, it shows perhaps that you have bought into Western classical elitism, right? Yes, yes, that's a little bit of elitism there, colonization, all of that. So we developed this art form for royal houses, larger houses, et cetera, or larger spaces, excuse me. And so as that developed, we saw the need to have the training in order to find those coordinations in order to be heard unamplified. So we started out in very much a master apprentice style, ⁓ which I'm going to just call apprenticeship style. Master has a lot of that is a fraught word, but in apprenticeship style where there is an expert and there is someone who's learning how to do the thing. And so that's how we started out. And then we moved into conservatories again, broad swags here, but we moved into conservatories where we had mostly apprentices apprenticeship style. Again, we're not talking about lecture style. We're not talking about discussion style, which is where academia went. So academia went one way into sort of lecture-based, discussion-based ⁓ learning. And the performance arts went into conservatories and the trades went into colleges and ⁓ apprenticeships. So we have these sort of differentiations. And then as we started to be, as everyone started to want to have a degree, and look at me, I I hold three degrees, but like everyone wanted to, you know, oh, we have to formalize this, we have to make it, we have to bring it out of the like colleges and apprenticeships and conservatories, and we have to make it formal, and everybody needs to have a degree. Then we started to move performance arts. including dance and drama and all of the performance arts and ⁓ fine art as well, into universities. I'm in Canada, by the way, so university and college are two different things in Canada. In America, they are not, but in Canada, they're two different things. ⁓ Some colleges are now degree granting, but in college you get a a certificate which is far more applied and in university you get, which I think is a little bit more British, which likely is similar. I'm not sure about. So we moved the applied arts, these performance arts, these applied apprenticeship style learning things into academia. So now we have academic requirements around a performance art. So now we also then have this understanding that the way to teach and specifically around Western classical, right, because that's the only thing that got moved over. And that's the only thing that we needed to put ⁓ into a learning structure and academic learnings or any kind of learning structure, because it's the main one where we have to find these very complex coordinations in order to be heard. all of our other styles, not all, but many of our other styles, we can learn person to person, they're passed down, they're far more intuitive in terms of how we use the body to communicate. So like you said with ballet, right? This is the same, the same, a very similar progression where we go, oh, this is, we're creating something beautiful in a different way. We did not say that initially. were like, creating something better, but it's beautiful in a different way. And it requires this very specific kind of training. Therefore it's elevated, big quotes. Therefore it's elevated, therefore it's better. ⁓ And so all of those other things that we can learn more intuitively and that we can coordinate our bodies toward in a far more, ⁓ you know, present grounded, you can get to it so much more quickly. They're not worth as much because you can learn them faster, quote unquote, right? They're not worth as much. And so of course, decolonization of Western classical music, well, that's who knows, but that is the sort of progression of voice pedagogy. And so it's only in the very recent, maybe 25 years that we've started to accept big quotes, contemporary styles into academic programs, jazz styles into academic programs, right? Why? Because for a long time we were like, well, you hardly have to do anything to learn that. why should we be in school? You don't need to be in school for that. And so there's this lower perception, right? They're perceived as being a quote lower art form, which is terrible. It's just terrible. So that is a very broad, very general overview of how we kind of got to voice pedagogy and also like the concept of voice pedagogy. This concept of teaching voice and voice pedagogy is also very new. The idea, because it is traced from bringing performance arts, bringing Western classical singing into academic institutions. Before that, when we were in conservatories and or ⁓ schools of music, we were not thinking along the lines of like, have to systemize, systematize, systematize, sure, the way that we deliver this information because someone is going to judge whether or not we delivered this information in the way that we're supposed to deliver this information. And also we have to do it to a large group of people. who are now paying us a ton of money and we need to give them some outcomes, right? We need to check some boxes here to make sure that we are delivering the thing that we promised we would deliver. So it is fraught that the whole history of pedagogy is fraught. And why don't I also say while we're at it that when we brought it into the academic field, we hired and we still do to this day, We hired folks to teach these things who had careers. We did not hire folks who know how to teach. speaker-1: Right. speaker-0: Those are two different things, right? So now what happens? Now we have, and again broadly speaking, now we have folks in positions of the educator or the grand pedagogy person because they're teaching, but how are they teaching exactly the way that they know how to teach, which can be useful, certainly, ⁓ it can be useful, but does not actually teach you how to learn. It does not necessarily give you agency as a singer. So we have and I mean, I've said this quite a bit, too. We can have power over and coercive ⁓ teaching methodology both in an apprentice apprenticeship learning ⁓ environment and in a lecture style learning environment. Right. So we have that is that power over that is. inherent in all of our learning environments, especially the closer we are to intersections of privilege, the more we feel that our job is to tell people what to do, right, with their bodies and how they're going to learn and what you have to prove to me in order to prove to me that you have learned. So the more intersections of privilege we have, the closer we are to the dominant culture, if you will, the more deeply embedded that right quote to tell people what to do for their own good. The more that is embedded in our pedagogy because it is our lens. is what we see the whole world through. And so we think that that's our job in pedagogy. And we don't question it often anyway. So that is a big part of what I do is get out there and say, we're not really teaching agency here. We're not, and without agency, there's no artistry. speaker-1: really get that. so interesting. it sounds like this. I didn't realize that there was such a burden of history that vocal pedagogy is carrying. And there's a process going on, which is unpicking it and questioning it and looking at it through various lenses. I know you look at, for example, neurodiversity and how to teach appropriately for a neurodivergent community. And it's really interesting to me, even when one considers ⁓ what a healthy outcome is from a singing process. It seems that there's so many presumptions about vocal pedagogy that are baked in from its history. An example might be, for example, that teaching voice seems to be about creating performers and maybe a lot of mostly solo performers, but maybe also sometimes choirs. I'm not sure. But when we look at traditional culture, singing is sometimes possibly facilitated, but as you immediately made a circle, it's a group experience. And I'm reminded of, I don't know if you know of Dr. Besselvendor Kolk, the author of The Body Keeps the Score. I found a video of him about 10 or 15 years ago speaking about the most powerful traumatologist he ever saw in action. was ⁓ Archbishop Desmond Tutu during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, where incredibly painful things would be spoken about, a real reviewing of apartheid atrocities, and it was too much to talk about and too painful. And eventually he realized what he did, and what he needed to do is when it got too much, he would lead everyone out to sing and move together to... titrate or as I said in trauma speech to pendulate between this difficult material and then back into joy or at least connection and nervous system regulation and that movement and singing being probably one of the most powerful ways we have to co-regulate our nervous systems. So there are these kind of absolute jewels lying in singing and movement that are not really included in academic pursuit of singing. maybe part of my question is that I'd like to pose in this moment is what does healthy look like? What does healthy singing look like in vocal pedagogy and is it a focus ⁓ or should it be a focus or does it depend on the tradition even? speaker-0: I work with lot of voice teachers who are either beginning voice teachers or independent voice teachers. I do work with academic teachers as well, folks who are in academia and folks who are teaching Western classical styles. But the vast majority of the folks I work with are not teaching Western classical styles because the vast majority of people who are in a typical independent voice studio are not working with singers who want to sing opera, frankly, right? So for the most part, they... That is not a thing. I'm almost not, that's majority of folks I work with are teaching almost anything except Western classical styles. And so even though that is what they are teaching and many of them have not done a Western classical degree either. So I work with lots of folks who have not done a Western classical degree and who are teaching, even though they have not done a Western classical degree and they are not teaching those styles. there is still a lens through which we view what healthy quote singing is. And it tends to be the lens that we have imposed from Western classical bias or from what we think Western classical singing because we put this Western classical style on a sort of pedestal. And so then this trickles down even to the folks I work with who are not who have not studied Western classical styles, do not sing them, don't listen to them, and who don't work with singers who want to sing it. So like even those folks. So what happens is we view singing through the simply what is physically healthy, like am I gonna get notes? Am I shouting too much? Belting, all of the time I see courses on how to do healthy belting and I'm like. I'm so frustrated by that because there's no such thing as unhealthy or healthy anything in singing when it comes to the physicality, right? I think you're referring a little bit more to spiritual or ⁓ mental perhaps. speaker-1: Both, actually. Also physically as well. A lot of people, when they're beginning singing or haven't sung or have sung for a long time, it's sore. It can be painful. It feels like their throat's closing. There's stuff going on. And when they haven't done any training, it's an absolute mystery. Yes. But are there different models even for what that kind of health looks like? Yeah. So think you are speaking to it. speaker-0: Here's my, aha, yes. here's part of the reason that I get frustrated with the narrative around healthy singing, and especially when it comes to healthy belting. Belting is our friggin' birthright, friends. If you can speak loudly, you can belt, and we have all done some belting at some point in our lives that is wonderful. Anyway, part of the fear around healthy singing is again, filtered through this Western classical lens that says, if you are, which is frankly racist as well. So if you are, if you are melting, yes. And, and I am speaking almost exclusively about North American, right now, I'm not sure that I can speak to the rest of the world in terms of this, but certainly about North American, ⁓ speaker-1: Can you explain why? Yes. speaker-0: history and where this comes from in North America. ⁓ Canada, like to think that we're, but we're not. We like to think we're better than the States and we are in some ways for sure, but in lots of ways now. So we got our own stuff going on as well. So the belting was seen, that kind of higher pressurized singing and Pressurization, not a bad word. Higher pressurized singing, that kind of like intense singing, that kind of in the body, if you will, kind of singing. That we associated that with ⁓ the music of enslaved people. Right. And we associated that in Canada in particular, I mean, in the States, sure, as well. But we associate that with the music of our indigenous cultures. Right. So we associate that higher pressure singing with not white. speaker-1: had no idea that there was a link between balting and people of color and indigenous folk. That's very, very interesting. Okay. speaker-0: In the States, ⁓ in particular, we have references to a word that I'm not going to say, singing, literally described as this kind of singing. And it's just belting or high pressurized singing. Yeah, that's all it is. Right. So it's unrefined. I've got all the quotes up here now, just in case you're listening and not watching, but unrefined, you know, savage. ⁓ all of those words. ⁓ speaker-1: I'm so curious because I used to belt rock band belts. It was hard work. And then eventually I did find some really interesting liberation in learning how to use my mixed voice or a blended voice. And it was great to learn that. But I definitely, once I learned it, I think I was beginning to see my belting as bad through the lens of this more evolved kind of low pressure singing. Yeah, so you're saying no. speaker-0: What if the belt that was harder to do and took more out of your energy or, also perhaps impacted the way that you, you know, engaged muscularly. What if that belt was just an option? What if all of the other things that you learned how to do were also options? And what if you got to choose how much energy, how much ⁓ engagement you wanted to have in order to create a specific or to communicate in a certain way according to what you wanted to say. What if? There's no unhealthy singing. There's no unhealthy singing. There's only I get to choose. I there's only. speaker-1: That's sad. speaker-0: I go to a coach or an expert and in an apprenticeship sort of situation, I ask them, what are some other options that I've got here? And my coach, my teacher, the expert doesn't use their expertise to say, ⁓ you were singing badly and that's why, and here I'm going to teach you how to sing well. What if the expert uses their expertise not to tell you what was right and wrong or what to do? but to offer you options, to show you what the options are so you can make a choice. And so you can decide, you know what? Today, I've got lots of energy, I've got lots of engagement, also I'm doing a recording, so I wanna put it all on the table. I don't have to sing for another two days. I wanna put it all on the table. speaker-1: I love that you speaker-0: You go and do the thing. Yeah, you use your voice to communicate in the way you want to communicate. And then you develop options, say you're touring. Great. You develop options for what to do with the voice to still communicate the thing you want to communicate, but also perhaps to create a longer timeframe for voice use. speaker-1: That really makes sense. It's so good. I'm going to reincorporate my belt and just have it as part of my palette. Thank you very much. speaker-0: It's an option. You get to decide, right? It's not healthy or unhealthy. It's only unhealthy if you don't have an option. speaker-1: Yeah. Shannon, I would love to come back to that 90 % that you were talking about earlier. And I'm not sure what vocal pedagogy has got to say about it, but I'm quite focused on the 90 % who are not. who don't see themselves as singers. I often, when I was leading webinars, I'd put up a picture of myself singing in front of 25,000 people. And I'd say there was a great tragedy unfolding there, which is that 25,000 people were looking at me and thinking that I was the singer and that they were not seeing themselves as singers. Is this a cultural thing that has happened that in traditional cultures doesn't exist so much? Literally the disenfranchisement of people from their own voices and from collective singing together to regulate and bond and even drop their sense of self and other. In other words, real connection, potentially even a dismantling of aspects of, I would even go so far as things like racism or othering of people because the more we turn ourselves into athletes who perform against everyone else in life, the more dangerous we are as a species. And singing is a way, is one of our earliest ways of being us. I'll tell a little story. When I work with ⁓ Caucasian audiences, if I may generalize, and when I'm working with groups, I'll offer it, let's just say a live group, who would be willing to stand up and watch your bodies as I ask this question and tell me what you feel. Who would be willing to stand up? and sing in front of all of us, just a little song. And I can see on your face instantly, you you know what everyone's going to go into. And there's a lot of terror that moves in people's bodies. And so I started to ask this question like, what is going on inside us? And is it in everybody's bodies? And then I teach workshops in South Africa and I lead groups. And if I'm working with a primarily black South African audience, I find very different responses. Not everyone feels like they can sing in tune so accurately, but I'll ask, you know, let's just say I'll get a show of hands. Who likes singing? Everyone puts up their hands. Who feels like they can sing out of tune or in tune quite successfully, maybe 70%. Then I'll ask the people in a black audience in South Africa. And again, I'm going to generalize a little bit. Not everyone's like this, but how do you feel about singing? I'll get responses like, ⁓ no, I love it. I'm just not so fluent at it. I feel like there's a multi-generational or cultural wound that is potentially being perpetuated by vocal pedagogy and the music industry and so on. So I want to throw it back to you to ask you, how is vocal pedagogy, at all, helping the 90 % to recover their voices and sing together? And is it a thing? I'm asking a hard question. speaker-0: Yeah, that's another whole question, Jeremy. Thanks. So let me say first of all, I am... not able to speak on behalf of the entire establishment of folks who are in pedagogy or teaching voice pedagogy or, you know, writing the books and all that stuff. am am not able to speak on on their behalf. ⁓ And while I do hold both a master's and a doctorate in voice pedagogy from through a Western classical program, so my degrees are in Western classical performance specializing in voice pedagogy. And while this is what I do, I teach voice pedagogy and I do teach an undergraduate voice pedagogy course at the University of Toronto here as well. ⁓ And, you know, I, I go in and out of the academic world quite seamlessly. I can go in and out of that, out of this sort of academic voice pedagogy world, relatively seamlessly at presented conferences and all that stuff. I can do that. And also I feel that I am also quite a bit of an outlier. And so I want to say that I am not certain that while we are talking about those things in voice pedagogy and sort of academic institutions in the systems in the larger voice pedagogy community, if you will, while these things are being discussed and while there is a recognition, perhaps with the words anyway, there is a recognition of the necessity for decolonization, the necessity for anti-racism work, the necessity for understanding that Western classical eliteism and understanding what's happening, why we teach in the way we teach. And while I will say that, think that that is starting to be recognized. with very few exceptions. I am not yet seeing wholehearted changing of systems, changing of programs. There are teachers within the systems, of course, who are doing their work within the systems. But to my mind, that kind of work is We would need a new system. So the system is working exactly the way it was designed to work. Right? It's working perfectly. It's working exactly the way it was designed to work to disenfranchise students, to disenfranchise, to elevate teachers to the point of being the final voice on your voice to, you know, to grade whether or not you are an artist. speaker-1: Right. speaker-0: Okay, good. That seems like a really great way to use our resources and really effective too. That's going to work really well for us. And also pit singers against each other, of course, right? Because now I need to get a 90 and if I don't get a 90, then so-and-so is going to get a 90 and they're the one who's going to get the role. how are they judging whether, well, I have to do this entire checklist in order to get a 90. Do I know? do I get to say anything in this? Like, and if I, if I bring some of my own artistry in here, what if they don't like it? And now I'm so like, there is, I am not sure that these things while we are talking about them, certainly, and along the same lines, we're talking about student led ⁓ learning and, and, and the concept of student led learning or student centered, if you will, which is very much coming to the forefront in our classroom education, so in our classroom education circles, the things that I am seeing coming ⁓ from the larger academic community where people individually are certainly recognizing and saying and trying to change things, again, I'm not sure that it's going to. I'm not sure how effective it can be. And I say that coming from someone who teaches only one class. I only teach a half credit course at the University of Toronto. Just one class, I've done it for a long time. But like, I say that as someone who is somewhat adjacent to the system as well, where I am implementing student led and lots of like, am implementing as much as what is possible within that system. I'm just the only way to change that that I can see in a systemic way is to just get a new system. I would say though, that as we bring more, I'm sorry, I will also say in terms of communal singing, as we understand more about decolonization. anti-racism work, how Western classical elitism impacts learning and impacts our lens through which we view what is good singing, what is healthy singing, et cetera, And as we start to, as school systems start to intentionally hire folks who are not white and who are not, know, like as we start to intentionally hire folks who have an understanding of what it means to be in community as a community singer, what it means to develop culture and community around singing and around what that brings together. I think that certainly some of our choral programs anyway, may have a better chance, perhaps, ⁓ really instilling and re-teaching, if you will, or reconnecting with what it means to be in community as a singer with the caveat that the vast majority of the folks who are coming into these programs are auditioned. So there's still that sort of like you, you know, there's still that kind of like gatekeeping in there. Now, speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: I will shout out to one of the universities here in Ontario, which is the province that I'm in at Canada, ⁓ Wilfrid Laurier University, shout out to Wilfrid Laurier, that has a community music program, which is certainly a step in the right direction. So that is something. The audition is really what would you like to sing and what would you like to tell us today with your voice ⁓ or your instruments? And they are working within that program to certainly develop music skills, but also to have this other aspect that you're talking about where we're not developing sort of like superstars. We're developing singing as a resource as a way to connect a communal ⁓ strengthening, community strengthening. ⁓ activity. speaker-1: Yes. ⁓ No, but was very clear. I think, as you said, it's almost like when we need to start in a different lane. The existing lane is self-supporting. It's got a particular function, and it's OK that it does that. It's just, I think, my question is, more or my focus and my interest is about voices that don't feel like they can. And there are just such radical I'm gonna call them trauma responses. What I think are multi-generational trauma responses lodged in people's bodies around singing and that to effectively liberate voices at scale would require trauma-informed methodologies as well as singing teaching. So it would almost need to be a new type of pedagogy for recovering all the folks who have been left out of the birthday party and can no longer sing happy birthday. And I can't tell you how many people I've worked with for whom just singing Happy Birthday is highly traumatic. speaker-0: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. speaker-1: Okay, well, as you were describing voice-led teaching, I would love to also just drop by, you know, one of the subjects that you've spoken about is neurodivergence and how then one shifts teaching. And I think that'd be really interesting for us just to talk about what it looks like to shift lens deliberately to create space. And rather than do this top-down teaching, we're going to just cookie cutter you into submission. What is... allowing neurodivergence into your teaching. How does that work? speaker-0: I say neurodiversity affirming voice pads, is, you know, that's the sort of way that I put the handle on it, if you will. ⁓ frankly, that is very much along the same continuum as student led practices, as is trauma informed, as is ⁓ ⁓ gender ⁓ affirming, is all of the sort of, all of the ways that we become more inclusive in our teaching, start with us understanding where our bias lies, right? Starts with us acknowledging and understanding our intersections of privilege, starts there. The singer in front of me is doing the best they can with the information that they have or in the situation that they find themselves. in the, yes, within the situation they find themselves in. So the singer in front of me is doing the best they can. And so when I have in my mind, the singer in front of me is doing the best they can. And my job is not to tell them how to do it the way I want them to, or tell them what their best should be. My job is to support them to find options. so that they can make choices. So they want to sing happy birthday without going completely inside of themselves or their throat literally locking up or feeling like it's swelling or you know they want to be able to do that. Okay right now they're doing the best they can within the with the information that they have and in this situation. What are the things that I can do first of all to stay in it with them? So If I am through that lens, ⁓ sorry, in neurodiversity land, so over in neurodivergence, the singer in front of me is never looking me in the eye. And they are pacing, pacing, pacing, pacing. They cannot seem to stay still and they will never look me in the eye. And they will never answer the question, how did that feel? Because they don't know. Okay. So rather than me going into, I need them to look me in the eye in order to show me that they are listening, which is, no, you don't. like, so my first, my first instincts takes me right out of the, right out of my body, if you will, or right out of myself, right? Because my first instinct is a reaction to the thing that I think they should be doing. So that is where we, in the work that I do with voice teachers, we go like, okay, did you notice how that singer not looking you in the eye, sent all of the signals to you that they are disrespecting you. What happens if you say this person is doing the best they can right now in the situation that they have, they are doing it the way they think they are supposed to. No singer in your studio with very few exceptions, no singer in your studio is trying to be bad or is trying to hurt you or is trying to show disrespect. or is trying to, know, with very few exceptions, right? On the whole, the singers you're working with are not there to trigger you. They are not trying to be a bad student. Like they are not that, that is not why they are there. So if you are, and I say this too, like if you're having prompts within yourself where you're describing the student in front of you as lazy or disengaged or rebellious or All of those things where we start to say, ⁓ this is a bad student and vice versa. Who do we think are good students? Is that because they're compliant and they're paying attention in the way that you want them to? And that's why they're a good student to you. That's interesting. That says a lot more about you as a teacher than it does about them as a student, frankly. Sorry. Okay. So. speaker-1: Don't pull back from that. Sorry, was just saying don't pull back from that because that was actually really, interesting. Yeah, you just put those clothes. No, but it's really important. I mean, it's a kind of a revolution in teaching that you're describing, allows space, as you said, student led. you become well, first of all. It sounds like what you're being asked to do is get in your body, slow down, own your own reactions as a teacher or educator, be in yourself first and then, and let them be in themselves and be curious. speaker-0: Yes, which is the essence of, of course, trauma-informed training, but it is also the essence of student-led training. often say, the more I work with singers or teachers, excuse me, to develop their student-centered or student-led pedagogical framework, the closer and closer we get to trauma-informed training, the closer we get to ⁓ finding who we are ourselves. I cannot tell you the number of times voice teachers have said to me, ⁓ this is what I'm working on in therapy. And I'm like, you think? Yeah, I am not surprised because we bring our whole selves into the studio, right? It's not like you put on your teacher hat and you leave all of your stuff, all you you bring your whole self into the studio. So one of the pedagogy principles that I talk about is the three second rule, which is actually the five second rule. Really, if you want to really stay, which is Give yourself the second after, I mean, this is part of learning too. This is not just because it's good for trauma informed, right? Or not just because it's good for you as a teacher, but this is part of learning. Singers need a hot second to process what just happened before you start telling them what happened, right? Or before you give them a new directive or even before you say, how did that feel or what changed, right? Even if you are working in a student led way already, give the singers five seconds at least to just process, right? figure out what happened before they go immediately to their brains or to like, or to you to say what happened, right? So also five seconds for me as I like I said, three second roll, but I tell people to wait five after they sing, after the student sings five seconds for me to re get into my own, like to stay in the lesson. I say this all the time to stay in the lesson rather than anticipate what to do next, rather than chasing the lesson. So you stay in the lesson and the questions you ask yourselves are, what do I want to hear more of? What do I want to hear more of? And where is, when I ask that of myself, what do I want to hear more of? How does my body respond to what do I want to hear more of? So when I go, ⁓ I want to hear more grounding and I go, that's how my body responds to that. I'm going to ask for that now. What happens if your shoulders get really heavy? What happens if your knees bend a little bit more? Let's try it again and see what happens. So notice how I didn't have to chase the, I didn't, don't have to chase it. I don't have to find a new exercise. I don't have to know friggin anatomy and physiology in order to be able to ask, what do I want more of? And I'm not fixing anything. Same thing in neurodivergent, right? So again, coming back to the person who won't look you in the eye. So I give myself five seconds to say, what do I want more of? I really want them to look me in the eye. Wait, why do I want them to look me in the eye? What does that mean? ⁓ I need them to perform learning for me. I need them to perform listening. I need them to perform engagement in a specific way. What happens if they are actually learning best by looking around and not looking at me? How would I give that a try for a minute? How about if I do that? So that five second rule just lets you stay in the lesson, as I say, rather than chase it, which is very much as you're saying, right? It allows us to stay in our bodies and stay present, right, rather than going into a nervous system, deregulation. I don't talk about it in that way, but that is also that from trauma informed, is the that is what's happening as well. But I talked about it in a pedagogy way, right, which is, we want you to stay in the lesson rather than chasing it. speaker-1: It's so powerful. Yeah, just the way you describe it though is, you these are best practice versions of active listening, for example, or the more you talk about somatically connecting with your own body and really checking in and then helping your clients do the same sounds like better regulated nervous systems, more grounded and settled people, much easier to navigate the anxieties and perfectionisms and self-criticism that inevitably come up when people sing, when there's continually pausing, slowing down, and coming back into the body. I love it. ⁓ These are all best practices. While we have time, I would love to also just chat a little bit about, just for those parents out there, what does child-appropriate singing look like, singing teaching? Why are children different and how does it differ? What does that look like? speaker-0: Great question. Student-led teaching means not just that I need to have some prompts around how to, pedagogy principles, best practices, around how to, you know, what are the prompts? How do I notice when I'm about to miss an opportunity to be curious? How do I notice when I, what are the signs that I'm about to miss an opportunity to do the thing that I actually want to do, which is to stay in the lesson, to support their agency, to ⁓ create a space where they know they can explore. Like how do I know when those things are happening? That's the general overall. then, and also I work with voice teachers to say like, what are the things you need to ask yourself in order to... do the next step. that noticing is the first step, as you posted a couple of days ago, noticing the pattern is the first step, right? Like that's the first thing. So that's what I work with in terms of student-led pedagogy ⁓ is noticing the pattern of when you're about to step out or miss an opportunity to do the thing you wanted to do. Then also finding the things that you want to do instead. What do I actually want to do? What are the questions that I can ask myself that will allow me to stay? on the path I want to be on rather than take this other path, right? Make decisions. What are my options? I work with voice teachers around specific types of situations or specific types of students. So neurodivergent students, children, adolescents, aging voices, all of those things, many injured singers or folks who have had an injury. lots of different ways. All of these pedagogy principles apply through no matter what, but also it's really good to have a few specific ⁓ understandings around various student populations. So children is one of those populations. When we're working with children, we are very rarely undoing patterns or recreating patterns. So when we're working with adolescents and adults in particular, We are, as you know, often working to re-engage musculature from intention, which means that we have to then change the intention or change our ideas around the intention or our past experience. We've got a sort of overlay, right? We've got to create this positivity around the thing, which or create a different pattern. or find the other options for that pattern, right? So that's what we're doing for the most part with adolescents, older adolescents in particular and adult singers. With children and younger adolescents, we are just working to create those patterns in the first place, right? We're just building. That's all we're doing for the most part. Some kids have already developed some stuff where you're like, okay, we need to find some other options there probably. We probably wanna find another option there. But for the most part, no. For the most part, we're working with kids to just build on what's already there and to show them in the same way that we are working with adolescents and adults, what their options are so they can start to make decisions for themselves. Often the folks who don't want to work with children. So first of all, let me say that you are allowed to work with whoever you want to work with. Please make a decision and you go for it and figure out who you love working with and work with those people. That's great. Maybe understand why you love working with those people and maybe see, you know. If what your student type is and why, that might be something interesting to go into. But folks who I work with who either are afraid to work with children or who don't want to work with children or who find it too challenging for whatever reason, often the undercurrent there is, what if I teach them something that is going to injure them? I don't want to set someone up with a lifetime of... stuff around singing, don't want to, you blah, blah. And often those are the same folks who were told to, you know, by a, as a child, they were told by an adult that they should, you know, mouth in the back of the choir because their voice isn't good or something along those lines. Right. So often they are not working with children, perhaps because they heard somewhere that, you know, they have to be careful. You don't want to hurt, you know, but also from their own. experiences where they don't want to do that to another child, right? They don't want to have... and that's fair. That is fair. If you understand, first of all, the folks who don't want to do that to another child are generally the least likely to actually do that to another child. First of all, if you are so aware of that, likely you are not going to ⁓ burden a child's... because you are so aware of... of how painful it was for you to carry that. So usually, So the reframe and also the validation or support for folks who are working with kids and also the thing that we want parents to kind of look for or perhaps to be open to when you're looking for someone to work with your children is this person's job is to help this singer find options for their voice within and understand what that means for a child voice as the voice matures. So one of the reasons that we've all, you know, we've talked a lot about like, children, I wasn't allowed to take voice lessons until I was 13 years old. uh-huh. Mm-hmm. Now that is going backwards. up until, you know, up until maybe 10, 20 years ago, there were lots of independent voice teachers out there who didn't tell anybody that they worked with children because it was, you know, children should go to choirs and should take piano lessons. They should not take voice lessons. There was a whole, I think, 2003, the New York Singing Teachers Association, they used to put out white papers on pedagogy all the time. I don't know if they still do. But in 2003, that was up until 2003, their official stance was that it was potentially harmful for children to take voice lessons before the age of maturity. potentially harmful. so in 2003, they put out a paper on it, a white paper saying, no, we no longer believe that. In 2003. We no longer believe that it is harmful. In fact, it might be beneficial for students, for children to take voice lessons. know, 2003. So this has been in the reason it comes back to our Western classical lens and comes back to that lens where the reason that we thought is because we have thought that the only way to teach singing is through a Western classical lens where you have to coordinate in this very specific way or it's wrong or it's unhealthy. You could hurt yourself. It's wrong. It's unhealthy. If you don't coordinate in a specific way. And if children try to coordinate to sing music that was written for a Western classical matured voice, then yes, they will develop patterns and muscle engagement patterns that are going to be really tricky to try to figure out and untangle later on in their lives. Yes, they likely will. Is it unhealthy? likely, it certainly will, like unhealthy leading to an injury, I should say, leading to an injury, unlikely, but it definitely will mean that they're going to have some work to do to untangle those patterns of engagement later on in their life if they want to sing in a Western classical style perhaps, or if they want to sing in other styles, because they will have so much wrapped up in trying to make their instrument bigger or trying to, you know, in order to create those sounds. So if we understand that we are not looking for matured voices here in a Western classical style in particular, yeah. And we also, I mean, I've done a 180 on this in terms of appropriate repertoire for kids. I used to be like, well, children shouldn't sing the, I am on record. I think I've got a live office hours out there somewhere that I should cancel. do have other stuff now, more current stuff now, but that. says the opposite, but I am on record as saying, you know, there is inappropriate repertoire for children. They shouldn't sing about like these specific subjects and they shouldn't sing songs that were written for an adult singer to sing and they shouldn't sing songs that blah, blah without outside of the range. I couldn't care less anymore. Why? Because, use your expertise to change the song to make it so they can't like, don't use your expertise to tell singers what to do. Even children. Use your expertise to make that song accessible for them. They love singing it. Okay, it's got some raunchy lyrics in it. Okay, maybe we change the lyrics a little. Great, because yeah, it's hard to hear a six year old talking about, you know, something we don't want that. That's fine. But change the lyrics. You can change the lyrics. You can make it about their dog. Like, you know, how much they have fun with their dog or whatever it is. You can make it about that. speaker-1: Yeah I needed to process that. speaker-0: Sorry, You can change it to how much, you know, you can change it to something appropriate, But yeah, you can change those, right? If it's got, if it has belting in it that requires a more matured instrument, children belt all the time. I, I, I am so done with the narrative that children can't belt. Children belt all the time in their playground. I'm so done with it. Or it's somehow unhealthy. It is not. They yell to their friend across the playground, they just used all of the coordinations to belt. It's not that hard. Belting, we do it every day. So if the belting, so if the belting is beyond their ability to sustain at this point, or it's not, you know, whatever it is, fine. Put it down at semitone, put it up and like do it. You could, you are the expert, are you not? Why can't you just change the song to make it the thing that they want, that they want to do? Why are we telling kids they can't do the thing? speaker-1: Yeah, I love how, as you say, student-led it is. And I think that the phrase that you keep using, I can, I've not used it like this before, but just help them find options so that they can explore what feels comfortable, what's liberating, what feels groovy, what's surprising, what's different, what sounds sweet or what feels weird, but just explore their instrument and work it out. And because our bodies... for the most part, tell us if things feel nice or if they feel easy or if they feel hard. ⁓ yeah, it's as opposed to this top-down, heavily imposed architecture, oppressive architecture. Go ahead. speaker-0: And we also tell them about their experience, right? So this is part of it too, where we'll say to a student of any age, we'll say, ⁓ this is kind of hard though. Let's see how it goes. You just told them what experience they were gonna have. ⁓ this is kind of high for you. Or this is gonna be, this is a hard belting song. Or this is a lot of lyrics. It's gonna be hard to learn. This is gonna feel a little weird. Even weird to me is a little bit of like, I'm just going to, or this is going to feel really good. think you're going to love this. I'm imposing my expectation of what they're going to feel on them. Right. So now it takes a really strong student who really understands the dynamic between an expert and, and, and, understands that dynamic to go against what you just suggested. Oh, this is going to be really hard. Let's try it. speaker-1: Thanks speaker-0: Now I have, now I'm not only am I going like, I don't know if it feels hard to me, but I guess it must be hard. Maybe I'm missing something. Like now I'm all in my head about, guess this was hard. don't know. Just let, let, let's see how this sits. Let's see if you love this. And if you don't love it, let's figure out maybe there was a little bit that you loved. Did you love it 25 %? Did you love it 10 %? Okay, great. 10%. How do you know you didn't love it? Great. Now we've got some really good tools. If you can describe to me what you didn't love about it. I don't love the rhythm. I don't love the blah, blah. The rhythm makes me feel or whatever it is. We can describe all the things. Now I've got some really good tools for you to start to choose repertoire for yourself. speaker-1: Agency. It's magical. think that's for me, I think a really powerful movement in the discipline. And really what we want to do is give people agency over their voices, over their journey with their voice and make it fun and healthy and one that they can own and is not imposed, but it stays adventurous and they stay curious. It sounds incredible. it's vocal pedagogy, at least as you're expressing, sounds like it's going in a very healthy direction as you try and ease it out of out of these ancient structures. Yeah. Well, bless you for doing that. Shannon, I think we're running out of time. So I wanted to ask you a question. If Dr. Shannon Coates was a perfume, what was it? What would it be named? Just two words or one word. That's horrible question. speaker-0: I know, I don't know. speaker-1: See, I just did that priming thing that you were telling me. I just told you it was a horrible question. The easiest question in whole world. ⁓ speaker-0: I don't know about like sweet, spicy, clean lemongrass, no florals. speaker-1: Okay, I love it. That's a beautiful description. And are you still singing and what lights you up when you use your voice? speaker-0: do not do as much singing as I would like to. let me preface that. do every once in a while, ⁓ once maybe twice a year, do an oratorio. So I get into my Bach or ⁓ with a local orchestra and choir. So every once in a while, which I very much enjoy that music. I grew up singing and grew up singing, but it's very much speaker-1: my hand. speaker-0: so delicious. I absolutely wonderful, wonderful music. Every time I go to a choral concert, I just like sob. Like I just and every time I go, think, okay, I've got to find a choir. I of live a little bit too far outside of the city. There are a couple of choirs in the area and that ⁓ that I think I would enjoy singing with and also that ⁓ I think I need likely to be in a choir where ⁓ it's not quite so obvious that I am a soloist or that I'm trained in that way. So I think so that is, yeah, that is that is an ongoing quest. ⁓ speaker-1: Yeah, I think I recommend to so many of my clients that if they can join a choir or group singing activity, just go and be with other people and share your voice. As you said, you you burst into tears. There's something about collective singing that just does something so deep inside us. Who knows where? Yeah, what a gift it is. Dr. Shannon Coates, thank you so much. Is there anything else you want to express about vocal pedagogy? Do you feel done? N- speaker-0: Yeah, think this is well, you know, I never asked if I want to express another thing. Of course I do. I think which is this. Part of the reason that I am working in the way that I am working and have developed this sort of like pedagogy principles and ⁓ and also a long term program where voice teachers where we work one on one. It's a group. It's a co-work. We work. It's a it's a definitely a mentoring. speaker-1: Yes. speaker-0: ⁓ situation where we get pretty deep in the pedagogy. But part of the reason that I developed that in the way that I work and also with the voice teachers I work with in the undergraduate voice pedagogy program who have never taught before in their lives. Part of the reason I developed the things that I have developed is that we all have to start somewhere. All of us have to start somewhere if we're going to be voice teachers, right? We all have to start somewhere. And often the voice teachers who are just starting, of course, I work with lots of folks who are well-developed in their teaching, but the voice teachers who are just starting, they have this idea that the reason teaching feels uncomfortable or I have this imposter syndrome or I'm not good at it yet is because I don't have enough anatomy and physiology understanding. And again, just bringing a full circle that is from the lens of in order to be an effective teacher, I have to tell people what to do and I have to have all the right exercises. So have to diagnose and prescribe, I call it diagnose and prescribe methodology. So I have to diagnose what's happening and I have to tell them what it is and I have to prescribe the right medicine. In other words, I have to know a lot of exercises. And then if it... doesn't work, either I'm a bad teacher and I need to learn more or they're a bad student because they're not doing what I told them to. Right. We go both ways. If it doesn't work the way I think it's supposed to. And so voice teachers come into voice teaching often with this, like, I need to take more pedagogy courses, meaning I need to take more anatomy and physiology courses. I need to know more. I need to know more because I don't have all of the exercises in my back pocket yet. I can't tell what's happening in the voice yet. I don't know how to, you know, figure out whatever the next thing is. So they're chasing the lesson, right? So what the pedagogy principles do and what this, to my mind, what this understanding of truly how to teach student led practices, trauma informed, lots of overlap, I find. coaching, lots of coaching overlap in student led practices, obviously neurodiversity affirming, gender affirming, lots of overlap, decolonization, lots of overlap in terms of pedagogy. The kind of pedagogy that I think is great. That student led pedagogy means that anyone can teach without knowing what the thyroid cartilage is. or what the thyroid retinoid muscle is. You know, don't even have to know it. no idea. And you can still be a very effective teacher by working in these student led ways. And I would argue that you are going to be a more effective teacher even if you are really experienced and you know all of this stuff, if you reframe and start to work with more student led in more student led ways. As I often say, there is a time and a place for some top-down work. There is. It is not the fact that I am saying that we should never do top-down work. Sometimes students come in and say, I just want you to tell me what to do. And we know, OK, you're at the beginning of your agency journey and that's fine. So I'm going to do a little bit of prescriptive work right now. That's fine. And I'm going to get you though. We're going to move into where you've got agency, right? There is definitely sometimes a place for a little bit of top-down work or prescriptive work. can be. The issue for me is that when we think that that is the only way to be an effective voice teacher and when that is the only way we can assess our teaching effectiveness is by whether or not the students are doing what we told them to do. That's not effective teaching. That's really good coercive work. Strong. speaker-1: I love that you offer a reach out of that. would just want to say, thank you. First of all, thank you so much. I actually have a hard stop in three and a half minutes. A huge thank you for this magical discussion. just, your details will be in the show notes. So for everyone listening, please go to Dr. Shannon's website. Those of you who are educators and working with voice, please check out her courses and her group work where you can really be in a workshopping environment and learn all the things. She's a magical teacher and I'm so grateful that you've been here today. speaker-0: Real pleasure. Thanks, Jeremy. speaker-1: Thank you so much. speaker-0: Yes, take care! Bye!