The Voice Science Podcast

Duke, Simmons, and Cash watched 17 college piano majors learn the same three measures of a Shostakovich concerto. The pianists chose how to practice and how long to spend. The next day, each played the excerpt 15 times. In this study, neither total practice time nor the number of practice attempts was significantly related to next-day performance quality. Only the three top-ranked pianists used al...

How much challenge helps a singer learn—and when does difficulty get in the way? In this episode, we explore Guadagnoli and Lee’s Challenge Point Framework and its implications for singing practice. The same exercise can present very different demands depending on the singer’s skill and the conditions in which they practice. We consider how attempts provide useful information, why too much difficu...

What counts as deliberate practice—and why does the definition matter? In this episode, we explore K. Anders Ericsson and Kyle W. Harwell’s 2019 response to research questioning how much practice contributes to expert performance. Their argument centers on a distinction: activities grouped together as “practice” may have very different goals, feedback, and teacher involvement. We unpack four types...

Practice Does Not Make Perfect The Voice Science Podcast · Season 3, Episode 4 What can identical twins tell us about practice and musical ability? Following our episodes on Ericsson’s deliberate practice research and Macnamara’s meta-analysis, we examine a different perspective: Mosing and colleagues’ 2014 study of approximately 10,500 Swedish twins. Across the sample, more practice correlated wi...

Deliberate practice matters—but how much does it explain? Following our two episodes on Ericsson, Krampe, and Tesch-Römer’s influential 1993 paper, we explore Macnamara, Hambrick, and Oswald’s 2014 meta-analysis of deliberate practice and performance. Across 88 studies involving 11,135 participants, the researchers found that deliberate practice was an important predictor of performance. For music...

In Part 2 of our exploration of Ericsson, Krampe, and Tesch-Römer’s landmark 1993 paper, we turn to Study 2 and its comparison of expert and amateur pianists. The experts practiced more and performed better on piano-related tasks. But their advantage did not extend to general reaction-time and cognitive-motor tests. That distinction helps us understand what years of practice may develop—and what t...

The Voice Science Podcast is back, and we’re kicking off the new season by dismantling one of the most repeated ideas in learning theory. The 10,000-hour rule is everywhere. And it’s a misreading of the original research. In part one of this two-part series, we go back to the source: the 1993 Ericsson, Krampe, and Tesch-Römer paper that started it all. The real finding wasn’t a magic number. It wa...

A quick but important update from the VoSci team — and a preview of what’s coming in September. The Voice Science Podcast is taking a summer break. When we return, expect a more frequent and more focused series with some topics we’re genuinely excited about: how to maximize your practice time, what baritones can learn from trombones, and how a 500-year-old vocal exercise may be the best tool for d...

Last episode, the premise was simple: when it comes to breath, more is almost always the wrong answer. This episode makes good on the promise — finding the leak and fixing it. In part two, Josh Manuel gets diagnostic. The episode traces breath waste back to its most common source — the onset — and explains how the way you start a note largely determines how much air you’re about to burn through. F...

“More air. More support. Bigger. Push more. Give me more.” If you’ve spent any time in a voice lesson or choir rehearsal, you’ve heard it. And according to Josh Manuel, founder of VoSci — it’s almost always the wrong answer. In part one of this two-part episode, Drew Williams-Orozco walks through Josh’s ground-up breakdown of how breath actually works, why the “more” instinct betrays singers, and...

Not all students want the same thing — and assuming they do is one of the most common sources of frustration for both teachers and students. In this episode, contributor Timothy Wilds introduces a diagnostic model developed by Juilliard-trained violinist and educator Fedor Ouspensky that helps teachers identify what a student actually wants from lessons. Built around two simple questions about goa...

Vocal strain is one of the most common complaints singers bring into the studio — and one of the most misunderstood. In this episode, Drew walks through the mechanical cause of most strain, why the advice to “breathe deep and support” can actually make things worse for contemporary singers, and what to do instead. The episode covers the hyperfunction loop, the relationship between breath pressure...

Anyone can legally teach voice lessons in the United States. No degree. No clinical hours. No exam. No license. In this episode, contributor Timothy Wilds makes a direct and sometimes uncomfortable case for why that should change — and what a more professionalized field could look like. Timothy draws a pointed comparison between the credentialing standards required of speech-language pathologists...

When someone tells me they can't sing, I usually hear: I tried, it didn't sound right, so I assumed the instrument was broken. It almost never is. This episode unpacks why singing lives much closer to speech than most singers think, why what you hear of your own voice isn't what's coming out of your mouth, and why the first year of lessons is mostly about removing habits — not...

Your Choir Director Is Your Real Voice Teacher — For Better or Worse | The Voice Science Podcast Has your choir director ever told you to "open your mouth," "create more back space," or "raise your soft palate" — and you had no idea whether you were actually doing it right? You're not alone. And the stakes are higher than most people realize. A 2019 study by Chor...

Overview A complete rework of Episode 1. Expanded with two new sections — symptom mapping (what failing breath support looks and sounds like) and studio observations (teacher-focused patterns and honest expectations). Original content restructured to lead with the diaphragm myth as the primary hook. Estimated runtime: 18–22 minutes. Key Concepts The diaphragm is an inhalation muscle that relaxes d...

Why Technically Perfect Singing Is Boring — And What Actually Moves People | The Voice Science Podcast (Title A — A/B test against: "What 'Phrase It Better' Actually Means — And How to Do It") Timothy once attended a choir performance at Juilliard. Every note was in place. The tuning was immaculate. The blend was flawless. And it was boring. So what's the difference betwee...

Are you a soprano? A baritone? A mezzo? If you’ve ever found yourself obsessing over your voice type, you’re not alone — and this episode is exactly what you need to hear. Written by Timothy Wilds, this episode of The Voice Science Podcast takes a deep dive into voice classifications: what they are, where they came from, and why treating them as a fixed identity might be quietly holding your voice...

Most voice teachers teach the same lesson to every student. Same warmup, same exercises, same repertoire suggestions. It's efficient, it's comfortable—and it shortchanges the fundamentally different instrument sitting in front of you. This episode tackles individualized teaching honestly: not the idealized version where you run comprehensive diagnostics on every new student, but the real...

Voice training has the potential to be deeply rewarding—for students and teachers alike. But too often, that early excitement fizzles into disappointment and a disappearing student. In this episode, veteran voice trainer Timothy Wilds explores why that happens and what both sides can do about it. The answer starts before the first lesson: most students have no idea what voice training actually ent...

"Descend on that high note like a leaf gently falling onto a lake." Beautiful image. But what does a singer actually do with that? In this episode, we tackle the imagery debate head-on. We share a personal story of doing breath support exercises for years—lying on piano benches with heavy books, dutifully tensing abs—only to discover that less than 10% of breath support actually comes fr...

The finale of our five-part formant series tackles the question every classically-trained voice teacher faces: how do you teach CCM without making students sound operatic? Classical technique uses maximum formant manipulation for acoustic projection. CCM flips this—minimal manipulation, speech-like production, letting the microphone handle projection. Same physics, completely different targets. We...

"Just sing what's on the page." The advice that made me feel slapped across the face—until I realized I'd been confusing inspiration with artistry for years. This episode explores why learning music from recordings is like playing telephone, why your "artistic choices" might just be accidents you kept doing, and the framework I use to decide when changes actually serv...

You've read about formants. You understand F1, F2, the singer's formant. But when you try to apply it in lessons, your student's eyes glaze over—or worse, they strain trying to find "more ring." There's a gap between understanding formant science and actually teaching it. This episode bridges that gap for classical and legit musical theater technique. We cover two fun...

Singing is supposed to be fun—so why does it stop feeling that way? Josh shares his own journey through singer burnout: from loving choir as a kid, to spending every evening locked in practice rooms chasing a perfection that kept moving further away. He breaks down what actually causes burnout for hobbyists, music students, and professionals—and offers different strategies for each. If you've...