Purpose: To verify whether singing teachers of different music styles use metaphoric expressions ("imagery") as didactic tools to teach vocal resonance, whether there is a desired physiological correspondence for each metaphor, and the reasons to use this kind of expression. METHODS: The subjects were 20 singing teachers with at least five years of professional experience teaching one of four different musical styles (five teachers of each style). They answered questions based on other studies in the area, regarding their teaching experience and their use of metaphoric expressions. The teachers that confirmed using imagery to teach vocal resonance were asked to describe three examples currently used, and to explain its physiological and musical goals. The interviews were digitally recorded, fully transcribed, and posteriorly analyzed and classified. RESULTS: From the teachers interviewed, 90% used imagery for pedagogical reasons, concerning either technical or musical matters; 88.8% of the teachers that affirmed to use metaphoric expression with physiological purposes were not able to describe precisely what they were trying to achieve, or mixed physiological goals with musical and proprioceptive objectives. CONCLUSION: Most of the singing teachers that participated in this study used metaphors as didactic tools, believing that this kind of imagery stimulates proprioception and musicality, and that instruction through physiological language is excessively complex. This finding might suggest that these professionals tend not to isolate the physiological process of voice production from the subjective process of artistic creation.
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