Belt

Belting is becoming the norm for what a "good singing voice" sounds like; think Beyoncé or Christina killing those high notes. It's the sound that's dominating musical theatre and the radio charts. And to think it used to be viewed as low-brow and unhealthy! Well, unfortunately, if you do it incorrectly it can be seriously and permanently destructive to your voice, so before you go about working on using your chest voice in your upper register, make sure you're doing it right!

Steps

Aligning Your Sound

  1. Have good posture. You wouldn't try to shoot a basketball sitting down on the couch, would you? Well, you could, but the result probably wouldn't be too great. And the exact same thing goes for singing! Hold your head up, place your feet shoulder width apart with one a bit in front of the other, and relax your arms at your sides. Keep that up!
    • Be conscious of how you stand. Do you tense up your shoulders or lock your knees out of habit? Do you slouch a little or rest all your weight on one side? These tips may sound nitpicky, but at the end of the day they can be the difference between an okay sound and a great sound.
  2. Breathe from your diaphragm. Your shoulders shouldn't be doing any work. If you've worked with a coach before, you know they're big on you being centered. That means you are breathing and getting energy from your core. So breathe deep and fill those lungs -- you're gonna need that air to power those notes.
    • If you're not sure if you're breathing from your diaphragm, try this test: lay down. Place a book on your chest and breathe. If the book is moving, you're not breathing from your diaphragm! Try to keep the book completely, 100% steady.
  3. Release all tension. Seriously. These notes will only come if you're totally relaxed. Most people hold unconscious tension on one side more than the other, so shake out your legs, grab your butt and shake it around (seriously!), and resume the position. Your mind is tension-free, too, right?
    • If you need to, disengage your mind. Find a spot on the wall and think about it. Think about the mere existence of that smudge. Focus on the air in front of you or your finger. It's only when you stop listening to yourself that you can stop that nasty autocorrect inside of you. And for the record, that autocorrect you have isn't any better than your phone's. You sound better when you don't consciously try to change your sound. It needs to be natural!

Producing the Belt Sound

  1. Place the sound forward in your mouth. There's a lot of metaphor in singing, but this isn't one of them. The sound literally needs to be forward in your mouth, coming out of the mask on your face. If that's confusing, experiment making sounds -- you'll know it when you find it. Try holding a finger in front of your mouth and singing at it; does that help? It should!
    • Another trick is to speak the words and then sing them just how you spoke them. At least as English speakers, the majority of our words are said fairly forward; mimicking that helps tell our brains what we need to do.
  2. Open your head. This, however, is one of the metaphors. It's one of those things that singers get; if you've spent a while working on your voice, you may know what this means. The best way to visualize it is seeing the notes come out of the top of your head. For some reason, that imagery can be quite effective.
    • Sometimes we also have a tendency to get quite nasal; if you hear your voice leaning in that direction, remind yourself to "open up." You should hear a change in your sound automatically -- something that's more natural and less covered in gunk, if you will.
  3. Let 'er rip. Really. If you're in your bedroom and you're concerned about the 'rents hearing you, it's not gonna happen. Well, it may happen, but it'll probably be a bit squeaky and it'll hurt. Rest assured there are thousands of 14-year-old girls across the world doing just that right now. Wait until everyone is gone and you can roar. Louder, louder than a lion. You've got the eye of a tiger, a fighter, you're dancing through the fire and they're gonna hear your roar...but way better than Katy Perry does.
    • No, belting isn't about being loud. Being loud doesn't mean you're doing it right. But, by necessity, belting is loud. But there's so much more to it than that! It still needs to be a beautiful, spinning sound.
  4. Keep your mouth wide open. We're talking a solid three, maybe four fingers up and down. It's a bad habit of many of us to relax and sing away as we normally do, but to hit those notes, a mouth that's open wider finds them more easily. So open up! Your mouth and your head!
    • To streamline your sound (like soundwaves punching the wall in front of you), keep your tongue near the back of your bottom teeth. Be careful to keep a curve in your tongue and not to spatulate it (flatten it, much like a spatula); if you do, it'll change the sound and make you more akin to Britney Spears. Successful, yes, but not the singer you want to be emulating.
  5. Don't lose your vibrato. That's that regular, pulsating of the pitch you hear when you hold a note out. It's easy to scream in your chest voice on a straight tone, sure. But heads up: that's not belting. That's...well, that's screaming like a girl. If you hit a note, make sure your vibrato is in tact. It shouldn't be a machine gun, and it shouldn't be vibrating like a snail -- aim for somewhere in between. Two quick things about your vibrato while belting:
    • It doesn't involve moving your mouth. At all. Those women you see who look like their jaws are being electrocuted are faking it to get the sound they think sounds good. It needs to be in your throat, a natural part of your voice.
    • If you can hit the note on a straight tone, you can hit it with vibrato. Just imagine the note spinning. If your vibrato is too slow or not there at all, you can take your finger to your throat and manipulate your voice box manually. That'll get the habit started for you.
  6. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Belting takes stamina. Don't let anyone tell you that singing isn't a sport! If you keep doing it, you'll develop more endurance, your breathing will come easier, and those notes will be more attainable. Nothing good comes overnight, you know?
    • All your singing should be mindful and you should be rocking the correct posture and mouth positioning at all times, not just when you're belting. If you practice incorrect form, you'll just make bad habits. It's perfect practice that makes perfect -- not just practice.

Staying Healthy

  1. If it hurts, stop. We're not kidding. If it hurts, you're doing it wrong. If it hurts, you risk developing nodes. If it hurts, you will lose your voice and maybe not just temporarily. So if you feel your voice getting scratchy or those notes you could hit 20 minutes ago aren't coming so easily anymore, take a break. You can revisit it again tomorrow.
    • In general, you should not practice belting for long periods of time. Keeping with the basketball analogy -- would you play basketball for hours and hours on end and expect to get better? No. After a while, your body just wears out and you start doing worse. It's the same with singing!
  2. Try a mixed belt. This is actually quite the skill -- it's harder than belting, and it's definitely harder than just relying on your head voice. A mixed belt is when you use both registers simultaneously. It's your head voice, but with a twang. And it sounds so much like a belt that many people refer to it as a "healthy belt."[1]
    • This involves first strengthening your head voice. If you don't have that (if you've been concentrating on your belt, you won't), you'll need to work on the head voice first. Then you can transition from your head to your chest unnoticed -- using your mixed belt in between.
  3. Drink loads of water. Loads. It should be room temperature -- too cold and it'll shrink up your vocal folds and too hot and it could scorch them. Room temperature water keeps them loose, hydrated and relaxed. And it's good for the rest of your body, too!
    • If your voice starts to hurt (you've stopped, right?), consider going for some warm tea or gargling saltwater. But whatever you do, again, make sure it's not too hot. Warmth is enough to reap the soothing benefits of the water or tea.
  4. Get a vocal coach. It can be expensive, but the absolute best thing you can do for your voice is to get a vocal coach. They'll ensure that everything you're doing is safe and healthy and, most importantly, sustainable. You don't want to be one of those declining divas in ten years due to poor singing habits! So ask around. Just an hour a week oughta do it!
    • If money is tight, consider hitting up your local college or university. Often vocal majors have to do some sort of pedagogy where they train students for free or for a very reduced price to complete their major. And it's a great way to meet friends with similar interests!

Tips

  • Sing an arpeggio or scale on 'Nyee', 'Nyay', 'Nyaah', 'Nyoo' and 'Nyou', using the NY to place the sound in the hard palate and 'brighten' the sound, the 'y' being the consonant use rather than a vowel sound.
  • In males, belted voices often sound similar to classical, or "legit" singing techniques, such as Bel Canto or Speech Level Singing. Classical methods are not similar in females as the higher range of a singer in formally trained singing in females is done in middle and head voices, not the chest.
  • Sing an arpeggio or scale on a 'brr', like the sound of a trumpet or elephant. This also places the sound forward in the hard palate, and engages deep support. The singer should slightly purse their lips and press their tongue into their bottom teeth. The lips should be loose.
  • Pronounce your vowels correctly. Depending on the range of the singer, the vowels will be more or less modulated. Hence, in a male voice, a belted A might not have the same amount of modulation as a belted B.
  • Find some good practice songs. Idina Menzel has a few good ones (Let it Go-Frozen and Defying Gravity-Wicked are some good songs to work with when belting).

Warnings

  • Do not strain your voice! If you feel that you can't, then don't!
  • Do this with a voice coach only!

Related Articles

Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ http://www.singwise.com/cgi-bin/main.pl?section=articles&doc=BeltingTechnique&page=4

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