Accreditation Questions – Feel Is Not Physiology
Your sensations are real. But they aren’t always physiology.
One of the trickiest things about teaching singing is that singers experience the voice from the inside.
That sounds obvious, but it creates a genuine problem: we can feel sensations very clearly while still misunderstanding what physical structures (anatomy) and movement (physiology) are actually causing them.
Inside our Teacher Accreditation recently, we were discussing pressure, vocal fold closure and various teaching sensations when one teacher mentioned hearing references to:
- “pushing”
- “bearing down”
- “the feeling before vomiting”
and other physical sensations sometimes used in singing teaching.
That opens up a really important conversation.
Because sensations are real.
But sensations are not physiology.
And sometimes singing teachers accidentally blur the distinction between the two.
Difference between feel and physiology
For example, a singer might say:
- “I feel the sound in my mask”
- “I’m singing from my diaphragm”
- “I’m supporting from my stomach”
Those sensations may genuinely exist for that singer. But the sensations themselves do not necessarily tell us which structures are physically creating the sound.
That distinction matters.
Particularly when singers start trying to reproduce sensations rather than coordinating sound.
“I feel the sound in my mask” – you can’t aim your sound into your face but you can manipulate your tongue position to boosts harmonics that set up sympathetic vibrations in the facial bones or cavities
“I’m singing from my diaphragm” – you can’t feel your diaphragm (and it relaxes on an outbreath anyway) so it could mean using abdominal muscle pull, or holding your ribs out, or even preventing the diaphragm from releasing
“I’m supporting from my stomach” – you can’t support from your stomach (it’s a digestive organ full of acid) but you could be using your abdominal muscles to pull in, or push out, depending on your training
Another good example is pressure.
Many singers become aware of pressure sensations during:
- belting
- high intensity singing
- emotional singing
- loud singing
- or physically effortful exercises
And because those sensations are noticeable, singers may assume that recreating the sensation itself is the goal.
But the body is full of pressure systems already.
It uses pressure for:
- coughing
- lifting
- stabilising
- childbirth
- swallowing
- bracing
Singing sometimes borrows elements of these systems, but singing is not simply “controlled pushing”.
That’s one reason I’m cautious about highly physical support metaphors. Some imagery can absolutely help coordination. But problems begin when metaphor becomes mistaken for literal anatomy.
What’s the problem?
The sensation you feel may be real, but the interpretation can become misleading if nobody explains the difference.
This happens constantly in singing teaching because the voice sits at the intersection of:
- anatomy
- acoustics
- psychology
- sensation
- emotion
- and imagination
And all of those influence how singing feels.
That’s why two singers can produce very similar sounds while describing completely different sensations.
One singer might feel openness, another might feel resistance. One might feel lift, the other grounding. The sound may still be acoustically similar.
This is also why some vocal instructions work brilliantly for one singer and fail completely for another.
And sometimes the image itself is not universally useful. It simply happened to unlock coordination for that individual person.
The important bit for teachers
If we assume a sensation is universally true, we can accidentally start teaching the image rather than teaching the coordination.
That’s often where confusion begins. And honestly, I think some of the best singing teachers become less dogmatic over time, not more.
Not because they know less, but because they realise how differently human beings experience the same vocal behaviour.
So when singers ask:
- “Where should I feel this?”
- “What should support feel like?”
- “Am I placing this correctly?”
there are no right answers.
That uncertainty can feel uncomfortable at first. But it’s actually freeing. Because it allows us to become curious observers rather than forcing everybody into the same sensory experience.
Reflection Question
Have you ever discovered that a vocal sensation you believed literally for years was actually a metaphor, an image or simply your personal perception, or that other singers DON’T feel it in the same way?
We’re getting some brilliant questions from our Accreditation teachers at the moment. If this post raises questions for you about sensation, anatomy or vocal technique, send them over. We can answer them in a future article.
Or for a more personalised and private conversation, book a 45 minute “terminology translation session” with me or with Gillyanne
