David Sisco
40 episodes listed below
Voice teaching with ethics, care, and rigor.
Wholehearted Voice Pedagogy treats voice teaching as a human relationship, not just a technical transfer of information. Recent episodes move through boundaries, classroom kindness, independent studios, power dynamics, humor, motivation, and the lasting influence of teachers.
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Wholehearted Voice Pedagogy is an interview-centered education podcast for people who teach singers and think carefully about what teaching asks of them. Its central concern is not simply how voices function, but how students learn inside relationships shaped by authority, vulnerability, habit, history, and trust. The show has a patient tempo. It makes room for context before prescription, and its best moments come when a personal memory opens into a larger pedagogical question. Recent episodes consider ethical boundaries between teachers and students, the quiet force of kindness in academic spaces, and the difference between power-over and power-with approaches to instruction. The show also looks beyond the university studio. Conversations about independent teaching and secondary education make clear that age, setting, and student goals change the teacher’s job in practical ways. A high school singer does not need the same assumptions as a college student. An avocational pop singer may need a teacher who understands a very different purpose. That specificity matters here. Wholehearted Voice Pedagogy is also interested in the emotional climate of learning: how humor can help a frustrated student reset, how motivation is cultivated rather than demanded, and how teachers can examine inherited classroom language that no longer reflects their values. The tone is humane, but not sentimental. It asks teachers to notice where their systems, syllabi, habits, and expectations may be doing more than they intend. The conversations are substantial and occasionally vulnerable, with references to coming out, classroom harm, systemic inequity, and teacher-student boundaries handled as professional and ethical questions. For listeners in voice pedagogy, musical theater, classical singing, pop-rock instruction, or private studio work, the show offers a grounded place to reconsider the studio as both a technical and relational environment.
Made for: For voice teachers, music educators, studio instructors, and pedagogy-minded singers who want deeper conversations about student-centered teaching. It especially suits listeners who value reflective practice over quick classroom hacks.
What sets it apart: The show treats voice pedagogy as both technical craft and ethical relationship. Its strength is the way personal anecdotes, guest expertise, and practical teaching examples are allowed to develop without being rushed into slogans.
Welcome to Wholehearted Voice Pedagogy, a podcast dedicated to the art and practice of teaching singers. Host David Sisco knits together current research from a plethora of fields to highlight a student-centered, culturally responsive, trauma-informed approach to teaching, which gives singers agency over their vocal expression and buoys teacher well-being. Each episode, David will be joined by a special guest, who will share their wholehearted knowledge about the student-teacher relationship. This podcast is an extension of Sisco's forthcoming book of the same title, which will be released by Routledge Press in Summer 2025.
Based on 4 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Wholehearted Voice Pedagogy turns questions of care, authority, and student agency into practical reflection on how singers are taught.
David Sisco often begins with a problem from his own teaching, then opens it up through a guest conversation. Wholehearted Voice Pedagogy keeps its attention on the relationship between singer and teacher: how authority is exercised, how motivation is sustained, and how…
A voice lesson becomes an ethics seminar, and somehow your syllabus is the one sweating.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A practical case for making teaching kinder, more student-centered, and less suspicious.
The episode treats kindness less as sentiment than as practice. It opens with a personal memory about sensitivity, loud noises, and a principal who would warn before he yelled, then moves into how kindness can be carried into academic life.
A thoughtful look at how voice teaching changes when the classroom changes.
Wholehearted Voice Pedagogy follows a career change to a practical question: what does good voice teaching look like after academia? David Sisco presents the move from institutional life to independent work as both freeing and costly, and the later shift to high school singers…
A steady conversation about motivation that treats mindset as daily work, not a mood.
The episode opens in the middle of a real teaching stretch: six graduate students are working toward capstone recitals, with some due in March and others in May, and David Sisco is thinking through how to keep the work moving.
A thoughtful conversation about influence, repertoire, and teaching that favors reflection over speed.
This season finale of Wholehearted Voice Pedagogy focuses on influence: who shapes a singer, how that shaping lingers, and how teaching habits can be revisited with rigor and care. David Sisco and Dr.
Clear guitar lessons for steady beginners.
Practical talk for stronger school music programs.
Playful music lessons built for listening.
Music education with practice, policy, and feeling.
A cappella, from the classroom to the loop station.
Practical band-room fixes from a teacher still in the classroom.
Dr.
The episode opens with a personal story about sensitivity, loud noise, and an elementary principal who learned to warn before shouting.
David Sisco opens by talking about why he left academia and what he wanted from teaching on his own.
David Sisko introduces relational cultural theory and the five good things, exploring how to shift from power-over to power-with dynamics in teaching.
A voice teacher discusses how humor helped a student overcome performance habits and enhance learning, featuring an interview clip on emotion and memory.
David Sisco opens in the middle of a busy semester, thinking about six graduate students and their capstone recitals while reflecting on the educator's role in keeping singers motivated.
David Sisco reflects on the past season of his podcast and shares plans for season two, emphasizing the importance of healthy teacher-student relationships.
Wholehearted Voice Pedagogy closes its first season with David Sisco heading straight into a conversation about influence and the craft of teaching singers.
Dr.
David Sisco discusses how to help voice students develop artistry by analyzing scores and connecting songs to their lived experiences, illustrated by a student's transformative recital performance.
David Cisco discusses the shift from teacher-centered to student-centered learning in voice pedagogy with guests Dr.
Voice teacher David Sisko shares three origin stories that led him to create a podcast and book on wholehearted voice pedagogy, focusing on the student-teacher relationship.