Shannon Coates - Voice & The Art of Teaching

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.

09/10/2026

Just over here asking my grad students to notice not just what a text is telling them, but how they respond to a text that is positioned as authoritative.

Do you read a textbook and think:
Okay. This is the information I’m supposed to know now. (Or, that I should have known all along. Or, that I would know if I was better at my job. 😳 )

Or:
Interesting. What is this helping me see? What assumptions is it making? Where does it fit? Where does it fail? What would I need to observe in an actual learner before deciding whether any of this is useful?

Because: those are two verrrry different relationships to information.
And, in my experience, voice teachers often reach for texts most urgently when we perceive that there’s a problem in our teaching that we don’t know how to solve.
Which: obvs.

We feel like we don’t know enough. Which means we’re not good at our job. We want someone who knows more than we do to tell us what we’re missing. So we can be good at our job. (That pesky imposter-thing can be a REAL driver, amiright?)

And our field has certainly offered us books to sooooth that particular beast:
The Diagnosis and Correction of Vocal Faults, anyone? Or how about: Solutions for Singers? 😆

To be clear: NO SHAME IN WANTING SOME DANGED ANSWERS.
And? I think it’s worth noticing how often we want a text to be a magical rule book with the perfect spells that, if we juuuust say them correctly enough? We can *finally* be THAT teacher.

So, VoicePedPals, lemme know:
How do you relate to “authoritative” texts in our field?
What makes you trust something?
What makes you question it?
And when did you first realize that reading something in a textbook did not necessarily mean you had to organize your ENTIRE TEACHING around it? 😆

09/08/2026

VOICEPEDPALS: GO BUY THE DANGED BOOK. 😆📚

Huuuuuge congrats to Meredith Colby on the release of Your Brain Sings Before You Do!

Publishing a book is A WHOLE THING (MY GAWD BUT IS IT EVER): the research, the thinking, the writing, the rewriting, the editing, the endlesssssss finishing … and I’m SO VERY HERE for celebrating it!

And? If you’ve been curious about Meredith’s work (especially if you’re someone who works with microphone styles), click over to Meredith Colby or Meredith Colby NeuroVocal hit the link in her bio, and grab your copy off of Schmamazon **today** so we can give the book every possible launch-day bump.

Buy it. Share it. Tell your VoicePedPals.

Congrats, Meredith!! 🥳❤️

08/30/2026

“I’m a student for life. I’m changing, the students are changing, formats are changing… there’s always something new and the discussion never ends.”

Excited to chat with mezzo-soprano and educator Krisztina Szabó as she steps into her new role of Chair in Voice at Toronto’s Glenn Gould School, and we reflect on our work together over the past (almost) decade (what?!?!).

Here is a short clip from our soon-to-be-released video where she shares why she keeps coming back continuing education and our work together, no matter where she’s at in this career.

Stay tuned for the entire thing coming to a YouTube channel near you.

PLUS! Tomorrow, 31 August, is the last day to book a VoicePed Consult at half price during the VoicePed Summer Sale. Head to my link in bio or DM me for more info.

08/26/2026

If you’re not following Katherine Needleman’s Obituary Accounting series, why not start with a good one?

Dolly Parton is dead. My condolences to her friends, family, and fans, who number in the millions if not billions. She was one of the most celebrated figures in the history of American popular music. She was a songwriter, singer, actress and philanthropist whose career spanned more than six decades. Her New York Times obituary was published yesterday and ran approximately 2,500 words.

Thirty unrelated women are named in this obituary, and twenty-three unrelated men are named. This is a ratio of 1: 0.77. Women outnumber men for the first time in my series here.

Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris, Taylor Swift, Whitney Houston, Tina Turner, Mavis Staples, Queen Latifah, Carrie Underwood, Kacey Musgraves, Norah Jones, Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Shirley MacLaine, Julia Roberts and Miley Cyrus are named in Dolly Parton’s obituary as professional peers, collaborators, and friends.

Dolly Parton’s ratio is better than all the other obituaries in my series. And, well, it’s hard to be better than Dolly Parton.

08/25/2026

Yep. Just some wildly unfiltered thoughts about teaching and learning that Instagram won’t share with new users because it’s too danged long.

So if you love this , pls reshare to get more eyes on it.

I might even write something coherent on the topic at some point in the near future so, you know, .

08/21/2026

Yeah … 2012-Shannon is feelin’ VERRRRRY FANCY atm.

Because: 2026-Shannon is super honoured and excited to take on MUS4241: Advanced Voice Pedagogy & Vocology at UofT - a course I did myself nigh on 15 years ago - in addition to UnderGrad VoicePed, of course.

Which means I’m DEEEEEEP in reading, thinking, consolidating, syllabus-building mode.

And asking myself:
What does an advanced voice pedagogy course need to BE & DO in 2026?

(And yes, this ABSOLUTELY DOES explain the content of my last Substack article. 😜)

One of the first big pieces we’re getting up and running is the Teaching Project, where our graduate students will work with three singers for up to 20 weeks in a reflective mentored practicum to support their developing teaching practice. (Because - just like singing - you can’t learn how to do the thing without doing the thing.)

Speaking of the Teaching Project: HUGE shoutout to Leslie Ann Bradley, our Teaching Project TA, who is already doing fabulous work with me (while singing in FRANCE, btw) to recruit singers and get all of those moving pieces into place.

Speaking of all of those moving pieces: alllll of the kudos to Lorna MacDonald for conceiving of and designing and developing and championing and leading the voice pedagogy programme with such intention and integrity since its inception. I would not be living this dream without her creating the path in the first place.

P.S. the wee happy side effect of all of this is that I’ll be in Toronto much more regularly during the academic year, so I’m opening a very small number of spaces for in-person singing lessons alongside my U of T teaching days. More on that soon. 👀