The untrained voice and belt singing

The definition of (chest) belting according to Seth Riggs is using an excessive amount of air (air blast) and vocal cord tension in an attempt to sing louder.

Over the last 50 years, singers have been using their voices in many new and demanding, interesting and entertaining ways. Whether we like it or not, the untrained voice is creating sounds that many cultures desire and enjoy. Traditional singing techniques consider these sounds wrong. What is a singer to do? Take traditional vocal lessons and never be able to create these sounds? Or train elsewhere and learn how to make these vocal sounds without harm to the vocal cords.

Belting is indeed “a flavour” that the Western world has embraced. This can be a learned technique, but for the most part is self-taught. Good singers who are very “intune” with their body energy and support can acquire a belting voice with much practise and careful attention. An example of this would be Celine Dion and Adam Lambert. Unfortunately, when a singer is not careful about the problems associated with “belting” incorrectly, it can result in hoarseness, vocal nodes, fatigue, and even total loss of the voice.

Singers need to be aware that traditional training is not always the best path to study voice. Musical theatre voices are changing as well. Producers are hiring singers who can belt more now than ever. Again, we may not like these changes, but this is happening. The trained voice is being set-up for failure in the music business.

Having said that, Speech Level Singing does not encourage or teach belting. Belting is a preference in style. SLS sets a singer up with a strong, well-balanced voice, that allows the singer to sing in any style they wish.

I will try and unravel more about vocal styles in upcoming posts.

What happened to Christine Aguilera?

You probably heard the gossip surrounding Christine Aguilera’s mix-up of the words of Star-Spangled Banner at the Super Bowl. You can revisit that performance here I would like to talk about that performance, but not about the words she messed up, but rather her voice.

First, let me say I am a big fan. She is one-of-a-kind. I have heard her perform at times extremely well (You tube – live video concerts) and other times, not so well. This performance was definitely the latter. It is clear that she was not able to get into a good mix as she ascended in pitch during the song. She probably recognized that she was “pulling too much weight”, and things weren’t just right. This may be the reason she messed up the words. It can definitely be distracting when you find yourself in the middle of song, giving it everything you have, and knowing that there’s no backing down now, you have to get to the big finish, you have to get to that big note…….and…..well, what happened in Christina’s case, is that she had to flip and sing the biggest note in the song in her head voice. I’m sure that was not her plan.

What went wrong? Well, a number of things could have gone wrong. Maybe she had a virus and her cords were slightly swollen. Maybe she didn’t prep her mix well enough before the performance. I wouldn’t think she would go into the performance unprepared, but my guess is she belted with too much volume in the beginning of the song, such as the words “by” the dawn’s early light. These heavy chest tones can immediately unbalance the voice and make it difficult to get into your head voice. This song is in the key of F and the main belting note that she sang over and over is the A above middle C. I think the fact that she pick this key was detrimental for her. The key of G would have put her over her bridge slightly at the belting note, and possibly made it easier to be in the mix. In other words, she could have actually been singing higher, and not have had to flip. She would have been able to carry the chest in the mix all the way up to D above middle C no problem.