October 2026

The relationship between voice and characterisation is something I usually find myself thinking about while coaching, but it has also recently come up while discussing songs choices with arranging clients. It’s something I’ve explored in this blog while reflecting on coaching experiences, but the recent conversations have had me wanting to look at it in its own right.

Singing technique often presents itself in the abstract, as the optimised use of an essentialised body conceived as existing outside of culture. This is why one hears so much discourse couched in primarily anatomical terms, and why any one school of thought has a tendency to present itself as the prophet of true natural singing, arriving to save us all from the misguided ignorance of our former singing teachers.