Sensation vs. Perception: The crux of pedagogical contradictions

Just like Martin Luther King, Jr.,* I have a dream that one day vocal pedagogs will have field-specific, unified terminology that will eliminate the pedagogical confusion so many students experience when moving from one teacher to the next.  However, I'm starting to think this dream is too lofty.  In the subjective field of vocal training, trying to unify the centuries of pedagaogical terminology with the current science of voice might be a little too much of a hurdle to overcome.  I mean, motivated voice students will still desire to read and understand the writings of Lamperti, Garcia, etc. in the context of current voice training, so a complete shift toward unification might alienate the past writings of great pedagogs.

So what are we new pedagogs/voice students supposed to do?  How are we supposed to wade through the old information and understand it in terms of the new?  I think one piece of the puzzle might be to understand the differences between perception and sensation.

I touched a bit on this near the end of my previous post where I talk about what I feel is happening when I am singing, but it is something I've incorporated into my teaching that, I think, many of my students, even the teenagers, seem to appreciate.  One of my high school students had one of her choir teachers give her a few "vocal tips" that seemed to confuse her in terms of what we had been working on in her lesson.  Using this established difference between sensation and perception, I was able to explain rather quickly to this student that we were, in fact, working on those things, we were just calling it something different in our lessons.  This difference has become such an easy way for my students to begin developing a "tranlation" ability, which I find so, so important, since I know for most of them, I will not be their only voice teacher throughout their training.

What is sensation and what is perception?  Sensation is a term used in psychology, as well as anatomy and physiology, to refer to sensory information from the outside world coming into our bodies via the nervous system.  When this information reaches your brain, it processes this information, associates it with memories, etc. through some cognitive processing, and then decides how to act.  This is the process of perception, which happens to be a very individual process.  So sensation (diff. link) is the incoming information, and perception is the interpretation of that incoming information.  This works all the time for all of us in some obvious ways:  If two friends go to see the same movie, both people receive the same incoming information, i.e. the movie, but they might interpret the "take home message" of the movie in two different ways via their individual perceptions.  (How many of us have sent friends articles, etc. where the friend seemed to miss what was, to us, the vital underlying point of the article?  You can now blame their perception for getting it wrong...or yours, if you're humble like that.)

How does this work for pedagogy?  Well, a lot of the differences we encounter in pedagogical terms comes from the vast differences in the perception of proper singing...at least as far as I perceive it.  (Yikes!  This article could quickly become an exercise in circular logic, couldn't it?)  For example:  So much debate has been waged over the "low larynx" issue.  Student 1:  My teacher said my larynx should never move while singing.  Is this right?  Student 2:  Well, my teacher said research has shown that it does move quite a lot and should raise on high notes, so I guess you're teacher is wrong.  Student 1:  But my teacher said historical documents all talk about the importance of a lowered larynx, so are all those singers of the past wrong?  And the debate rages on.  So what's going on here?  How can science point to the opposite of what all the great singers and past teachers say they're doing?  Sensation and perception!  Biologically, the larynx is certainly moving around during singing, and yes, it is raising on high notes.  It's a physics-thing that simply must happen.  However, when laryngeal efficiency has been obtained, the singer feels like their larynx isn't moving at all and the teacher might not see the larynx raising as much in the throat as it used to.  So the singer might perceive that their larynx is stable, but it's just due to how their brain interprets the sensation of laryngeal efficiency throughout their range.

Another example:  #1:  The ribcage must stay elevated and stable!  #2:  The ribcage collapses during exhalation out of necessity since the lungs are getting smaller!  #1:  You're wrong!  Here's a youtube video.  #2:  No, you're wrong!  Here's an article by "Prominent Scientist."  How does sensation and perception help explain this one?  Well, the fact that the chest cavity decreases in size during any exhalation can not be argued.  It's another physics-thing that simply must occur.  But why would so many singers swear up and down that their rib cage is as stable as stable can be and always elevated during singing?  Sensation and perception!  The act of using excess muscular effort to keep the rib cage from lowering too fast sends very different sensation information to the brain than what it's used to.  For most people, the brain interprets this information with the perception that the rib cage is not moving at all, perhaps because the information is so opposite of what the brain is usually getting about the movement of the rib cage.  So you end up with a lot of singers and teachers swearing up and down that the rib cage must not move, when in fact, it must move, but it must move so much more slowly than usual that it feels like it's not moving at all.

I'm sure there are other examples out there, but I cannot think of any at the moment.  If you have had a similar debate about another important pedagogical concept, please let me know.  I'll see if I can answer it using this sensation/perception model of explanation for ya!


*Disclaimer:  This is a dry-humor joke equating my tiny, little dream of unified pedagogical terms to the great deeds accomplished by Dr. King during his lifetime.  I'm pretty much an ant on the mountain of his greatness as far as I'm concerned.  I've just been watching too many 30 Rock reruns to resist the joke. **
**Disclaimer for the disclaimer:  I find dry-humor doesn't always come across online so I felt the need for disclaimer #1.  However, upon reading the over-explanation of the joke in disclaimer #1, I realize the already bad original joke has now been effectively destroyed.  Awesome.