POPUP VOICE PED CLASS

Expanding & Adolescent Voice

Ya’ know what?

The prevailing -ahem- wisdom used to be that people should wait until after puberty to take voice lessons. And that, until puberty, they should take piano lessons and join a choir. And, that people might injure themselves if they DID take voice lessons before or during puberty.

In fact?

I’ve even read about voice teachers who said that people should wait until they were SIXTEEN YEARS OLD to take voice lessons.

Which: whaaaat? If we independent voice teachers only worked with people who were sixteen or older? Some of us would drop our studio population by 75%. #amiright?

So, if you’ve got a studio full of people who are under sixteen years old (or you wanna’ have one), this is a class where you can get the anatomy & physiology info you need to understand exactly what’s going on in those pubertal bodies so you can work with them even more efficiently than you already do. And with no fear of injury.

NOTE: this class will NOT help you to understand the adolescent mind. In no way can I help with that. In fact, if you figure that out? Maybe write a book about it or something. I would buy that book in a heartbeat. #justsayin

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Soon this class will be a stand-alone, self-directed mini-course – be sure to join the #voicepedrev(olution) mailing list to be the first to know when it’s ready!

Here’s what some of the #reallifevoiceteachers who have participated in past POPUP Voice Ped Classes have to say about them:

I have always believed that understanding how young voices work from a physical and pedagogical point of view is extremely important, not only just for training solo voices but also for choral directors and school music teachers. It was an honour for Mississauga Childrens’ Choir to host a teachers' workshop with Dr. Shannon Coates as our guest clinician. Dr. Coates was such a dynamic presenter with lots of helpful information for our participants. It was especially interesting to me to discover what is reasonable to expect from young voices and why (from a physiological point of view) which will help me to select appropriate choral repertoire for my choristers. I would recommend Dr. Coates to anyone/organization who would like to learn more about how to teach/engage young voices. Thank you for being our guest clinician and we look forward to having you with us again soon!!"

Jennifer Tung, Artistic Director at Mississauga Children's Choir (Mississauga, Canada)
Stellar!

Maureen Batt, Soprano, Teacher, Artistic Director, Recording Artist (Halifax, Canada)
Dr. Coates's wealth of information, warmth, and vivacious energy made this practicum an absolutely wonderful and enriching experience.

Tatum D'Souza, Singer, Voice Teacher, Founder at The Vocal Studio (Mumbai, India)
Lots of great take-always and practical suggestions!

Cynthia Vaughn, Voice Educator (Richland, USA)
I needed a bit of time to process the amazing vocal ped weekend that we just shared, and I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank you for doing what you do. I've been in a bit of a... slump. All things considered, my life is pretty great and my pandemic experience has been better than most, but I haven't felt... inspired in a while, artistically or otherwise. I was still teaching my kids, but feeling mediocre at it, at best. For the first time in basically all of my life I have basically stopped singing, and even weirder for me is that I didn't feel compelled to do anything about it. And then I heard you speak on a podcast a few months ago and the way you were talking about your course... it was like it was you were speaking right to my soul, like this course was created specifically for me. The gaps that I've been feeling in my teaching didn't have to be permanent- there were resources available to me, things I could do NOW to be a better teacher for my students. Your course was everything I was hoping for and more. I feel engaged in what I do again, and empowered as an educator, excited to have these new tools. What I wasn't expecting to get out of this weekend was an excitement and urge to sing again. I am inspired and invigorated to get back into the studio and try out all of these great ideas, and I feel more like me than I have in a while.

Lisa Mulgrew, Voice Teacher (Lethbridge, Canada)
I feel like you've brought me full circle in my teaching.

Elspeth Maynard, Voice Teacher & Educator (Windsor, Canada)
You've brought me full circle in my teaching, Shannon! I spent years teaching voice based solely on imagery (which was the way that voice was taught to me) and then I retired from classroom teaching and had the time to take some voice pedagogy courses.

Suddenly, I felt like I had missed out on the past twenty years of research and was intimidated by all the voice teachers using what seemed like purely technical terminology to teach voice.

Then I listen to you, and I see that, although you know all the anatomy and physiology and can teach it, you still stress the need to communicate to our students about feeling and imagery rather than getting too "sciencey". So, I take inspiration from that and am learning to combine the imagery with the technical terminology to facilitate the deeper learning of my students.

Thank you for all that you do!

Elspeth Maynard: Voice Teacher & (Retired) Classroom Educator (Windsor, Canada)