Brains Are Like Cats: What Neuroscience Can Teach Voice Teachers

Meredith Colby
Sep 23
3 min read

Updated: Sep 24

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If you’ve ever lived with a cat, you know that cats typically don’t like change. New furniture, a new person in the house —even a new food bowl—can make them suspicious of your deeper and possibly nefarious motives.

Believe it or not, our brains behave in a similar way.

As a voice teacher or vocal coach, you’ve probably experienced this with your singers: the person tries something new, and suddenly they’re flooded with frustration, self-doubt, or other “big feelings.”

When this happens, you - caring person that you are - try to fix the situation that you believe you have caused. You may feel confused about why this singer is having feelings, because you know they have it in them to learn this skill. And it's just a new skill, after all. Isn't that why they're in your studio?

But that's not what it's about. It’s because their brain is reacting to the unfamiliar.

This is what I call the “Brains Are Like Cats” theory—a simple, brain-based way to understand your students’ emotional responses in voice training.

Predictive Processing and Singing Lessons

In cognitive neuroscience, the leading explanation for how our brains work is predictive processing. (If you’d like to explore further, Andy Clark's publications and interviews are a good place to start.)

Here’s the gist: the brain is always predicting what’s coming next, using things it already knows as its guide. It then compares those predictions to incoming sensory data and decides how to act.

This is efficient. Brains prefer familiarity because it's efficient; it uses less energy. In the context of voice training (or vocal technique), that means your student’s brain would much rather rely on existing sounds, feelings, and intentions than process completely new ones.

So when you ask a singer to try an exercise that’s unfamiliar, you’re not just challenging their voice—you’re challenging their brain’s energy-saving system.

How Emotions Are Constructed in the Voice Studio

Neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, in How Emotions Are Made, explains that emotions are not pre-programmed reflexes. Instead, emotions are concepts our brains create from:

Affect: the body’s raw physiological state (high or low energy, pleasant or unpleasant).
Meaning: the concepts and labels we’ve built from our unique life experiences.

That’s why a singer in your studio might interpret the same sensation as excitement, frustration, or even despair. It depends on how their brain conceptualizes those raw signals.

Want an example? Know anyone who gets "hangry?” Hunger is just a biological state. But when the brain interprets it, the "hangry" person might experience irritability, hyper-focusing (like, on their hunger or this stupid [something]!) or impatience.

The same process happens in vocal coaching, voice lessons, and singing lessons.

A Voice Training Example: Jordan’s Lesson

Let’s say your student Jordan wants to learn a specific vocal skill they’ve heard from their favorite singer.

You demonstrate an exercise with ease, because your brain already has the predictive map for that skill.
Jordan tries it, but their brain has no prior template. It struggles to match sensations, sounds, and predictions.
That inefficiency shows up as affect—high arousal and low pleasantness.
Jordan’s brain turns it into emotions like frustration, helplessness, or self-recrimination.

This is where your role as a teacher is powerful. Instead of rushing to “fix” Jordan’s feelings, you can normalize the experience. Try:

“Yes, that’s it—let’s do it again to get the feel.”
Or: “That was great. Do you want me to demo once more, or would you rather try it again yourself?”

With time and repetition, two things happen:

Jordan’s vocal technique begins to take shape.
Jordan’s emotions regulate as the skill becomes more familiar.

Why This Matters for Voice Teachers and Vocal Coaches

Just like cats, brains hiss at new things at first. But given repetition and familiarity, they relax and adapt.

The next time your student shows negative emotions in a singing lesson, remember: it’s not about you, and it’s not really about them either. It’s their brain reacting to novelty.

By giving your singers patience, space, and repeated exposure, you help them build familiarity—and with it, confidence.

The Takeaway

Brains are like cats. They resist what’s new, then eventually curl up and get comfortable.

As a voice teacher or vocal coach, when you understand the neuroscience of singing—how predictive processing and emotions play out in lessons—you can guide your students with compassion and effectiveness.

That’s how brain science makes voice training easier, happier, and more successful.

Meredith Colby coaches singers of all levels online from her indie studio in Chicago. She's the original developer of NeuroVocal Method, and the author of Money Notes: How to Sing High, Loud, Healthy, and Forever and Your Brain Sings Before You Do. Meredith's content can be found here, on her own blog, and on the NeuroVocal YouTube channel.