Belting it out

Gillyanne and I have just given another Belting Explained day at RADA.

It's one of our most popular public courses, and this time we had to close the booking early as we had so many applicants.

The course is based on Gillyanne's easy route to belting, which she has used with actors, singers, teachers and even voice scientists for many years. We've both worked with actors for a long time now, and belting is considered an essential voice quality for Musical Theatre. Our courses are becoming truly international, with participants flying in from all over Europe to take part. On Saturday we had actors, singers, opera teachers, a speech and language therapist and a brave musical director who doesn't sing much but wanted to find out how to work with belters.

We usually start with a few recordings of singers using belt quality, to help the participants tune into the sound. I had an interesting time finding examples, as it's not often that a performer will stay in one quality for more than a couple of seconds. And belting in particular is the 'in extremis' sound, so you would usually only use it for one or two notes in a song. Fortunately we had Kelly Clarkson to hand. Bless her, she belts whole sentences in Since U Been Gone, in both the solo and backing vocals - it certainly makes my life easier.

It was very interesting to note the listeners' reactions. We played 10 excerpts of different performers and musical styles, and most of the listeners were surprised at the variations of sound within the belting category. Each performer has their own style, but more important is the shape of the vocal tract and the size and texture of the vocal folds themselves. Even putting two sopranos side by side will sound different when they belt.

Having said that, for us true belting only occurs in a narrow pitch range (above where 'chest voice' ends) and there are a number of mixes or variations that incorporate elements of belting but don't come under the label. For instance, Barbra Streisand in Piece of Sky only actually belts a few notes (yes, including the last one) - the rest are speech or speech and twang, or other modal voice mixes.

Part of the course is spent identifying the components of belting that can also be used individually - speech or modal voice, twang, larynx height, deconstriction, head position and so on. If you want to read more on belting and its components, Gillyanne's second edition of Singing and the Actor has clear and straightforward information, and the Singing and the Actor Audio Guide gives audio demonstrations in both male and female voice.

If you want to join us for our next Belting Explained course, keep your eyes on the Forthcoming Courses page of the Vocal Process website.

Visit http://www.vocalprocess.co.uk for the latest downloads:
the Vocal Process eZINE (free electronic magazine)
86 things you never hear a singer say (free ebook)
Looking at a Voice (endoscopy video download)
Constriction and Release (opening the throat on video - the latest endoscopy video download)

The Vocal Process website has a series of free articles on style, memorising and musical genres.

Core tone for keeps?

Following on from previous blogs on style and genre differences:

One thing that matters to opera singers is keeping the core tone throughout the phrase and not to "disappear" at the end.

This is a big topic for non-classical singers (incidentally, the latest phrase is Contemporary Commercial Music or CCM singers).

Most CCM plays on a singer's ability to differentiate between registers and voice qualities, and sound decay is used a great deal. It is rare (except perhaps in Gospel) for the same volume and intensity to be maintained throughout a phrase or a song. Particularly in pop, R&B and soul, the vocal phrases tend to follow the shape of the sentence, so notes at the ends of phrases will fade, fall away or be cut short.

Now before all you opera singers start emailing me in disgust (again), yes, I know that there is shaping and 'phrasing' in classical music. However, the scale of it is smaller than in, say, a song performed by Blue. In fact, the whole architecture differs between a CCM song and an operatic aria, particularly in later 19th century opera.

One of the basic tenets of classical singing is that there is 'line' and 'tone' all the time. Any deviation from this is just that, a deviation. If you listen to the number of changes of quality and interrupted line that occur in any Blue song, you begin to realise that changing musical genres is more than just changing your sound.

If you want any more details on this, I have recently published an article in the Music Teacher magazine on changing musical style - click on the link to read it on the Vocal Process website. Thanks to the Rhinegold Publishing people for permission for that.

Visit http://www.vocalprocess.co.uk for the latest downloads:
the Vocal Process eZINE (free electronic magazine)
86 things you never hear a singer say (free ebook)
Looking at a Voice (endoscopy video download)
Constriction and Release (opening the throat on video - the latest endoscopy video download)