♬
Hi everybody!
My name is Justin Stoney and I'm the founder of
New York Vocal Coaching here in New York City.
Welcome to episode 72 of Voice Lessons To The World.
And, part three of our How To Belt Trilogy.
♪ Yeah ♪
Ahhh... [hits piano]
I'll tell you I will be glad to be done with her.
But let's see what we got here today.
This is from James D. in Blackpool, England.
And James writes, "Dear Justin, can you give me some ideas
to make my voice sound beltier?"
Now of course that's the perfect question for us to ask.
And we looked already at two very specific kinds of belting.
So today we're going to look further
at even more ideas surrounding belting.
Because as we know it is not just one thing.
It is a very, very nuanced art form.
Actually more than I can even cover in three episodes.
So know that we're gonna do
even more belting to come in the future.
But we'll start of the day with more ideas
by just going back to the question of-
what is belting?
So let's revisit it again, what is belting?
Well, belting is that drag of registers, vocal registers,
past where they would naturally be.
So in episode one we looked at dragging chest voice up
where things become a kind of shout.
Then in episode 2 we looked at taking the mix voice up
higher than it would go.
And that's the belt to use almost all the time
because it's got that great nasal resonance to it
and also head resonance, as big features protecting the sound.
But those aren't the only varieties of belting.
And also there's some other tricks that I would like you to know
that help make things sound beltier.
This can be applied to chest voice,
to mix, even head voice and falsetto.
There are tricks that we can do that can disguise things
to sound belty if we want them for that stylistic affect
or technical affect on the voice
to increase the beltiness of the sound.
So let's look at some other alternatives,
other tricks that we can add to our belt.
Belting is called belting because it's basically a kind of shout.
Now, we're not shouting very often.
When we drag the chest voice up
then we are doing a kind of controlled shout.
But, when we take the mix up
we know that we're not shouting at all.
So what we want to do is learn some qualities
of shoutiness that make something sound
acoustically belty without doing the actual shout gesture itself.
So what are some of those qualities of a shout?
Well, there's the mouth exit.
There's the mouth acoustical shape, this one...
[Demonstrates]
There's perhaps, sometimes, a high larynx.
Now of course we don't want to be blowing lots of air,
or blasting volume, at a high larynx.
But, the larynx does come up.
There's the nasal resonance that can give it a shine
and a real zing to the sound.
And then sometimes there's even a bit of a
raspy quality to the sound.
Now we're gonna look at rasp a lot more
in videos later on.
But some rasp in the sound
can actually increase the belty quality as well.
So that's it, those are some shouty qualities that
don't necessarily mean shoutiness.
The mouth exit, the mouth shape,
the raise of the larynx, the nasal resonance,
and the raspiness.
And so we want to be able to use some of these coordinations.
Like I say, whether I'm in chest voice or mix
or getting up into head voice and falsetto,
anywhere that I'm at in my range
if I want something to sound beltier
I can apply belt tricks to make it do that
even if I'm not dragging a shout.
And a really good song to demonstrate this with
is actually "Gethsemane" from the musical Jesus Christ Super Star,
because it goes sky, sky high but we're doing it right, here.
We're letting the cords lengthen.
The cricothyroid is lengthening the vocal cords,
the air is staying in, and we're doing
acoustical shapes and sounds
that make it sound beltier
and actually quite rockin' up at the top
even though it's quite light to the voice.
So let's check this out with "Gethsemane"
from Jesus Christ Super Star.
In the musical Jesus Christ Super Star,
I don't want to give it away,
but Jesus dies. [hits piano]
And when he does he has to sing
a Jesus kind of high note
which happens to be a G5.
And, you think, well why would anyone even
want to belt that high?
What's the purpose of going all the way up there that high in a belt?
There better be a darn good artistic, or dramatic,
or musical reason for doing so.
And in this case in fact there is.
The man is dying on a cross.
And so there's a dramatic reason why Andrew Loyd Webber
made the piece go that high.
So let's take a look at it.
It's very, very dramatic.
"Gethsemane" from Jesus Christ Super Star.
♪
♪ Alright, I'll die ♪
♪ Just watch me die ♪
♪ See how I die ♪
♪ See how I ♪
♪ Die ♪
♪
Phew!
That is just way, way up there in the stratosphere.
But here's the cool thing.
That doesn't really cost the voice very much.
It's actually not that hard to do.
Maybe technically it's difficult
but not physically.
As we go higher and higher
we actually lighten the vocal cords
if we're doing things properly.
If you're yelling and pushing chest up,
like we did in the first episode,
if that stuff goes too high
of course it starts to cost you.
But, if you move into the mix,
you move into head voice and sometimes Falsetto even,
in a reinforced falsetto when you go up
way high in the voice and then disguise it
with other tricks and resonances
it gives that impression of belt, belt, belt, belt,
belt, belt, belt, all the way up there.
And so we're next gonna look at some of these
belt tips and tricks that are a little bit different
from what we've looked at yet.
These are some tips and strategies
that I'd like you to keep in mind
because what we're about to do is an exercise
that covers all of what we have done
in the entire How To Belt Trilogy.
♪ Yeah ♪
[hits piano]
Don't listen to her, listen to me.
So, what we need is steady breath support, right?
You're not gonna get loud to go high now,
everything is gonna stay the same
breath wise, volume wise.
You're going to use nasal resonance in all the registers,
cause this exercise is gonna go from chest, to mix,
up into head voice, reinforced falsetto,
all of that high, high, highest of belting.
So you're gonna keep the resonance involved
in all of what you do.
Steady volume, steady breath, resonance,
and then you can play around with some of those
alternative acoustical shapes that I mentioned
earlier in today's lesson.
And so you're gonna mess with all of that stuff.
The exercise will facilitate it.
This exercise is in honor of my very good friend
Manny Cooner.
Who probably knows more about vocal technique
than any cat in the history of mankind.
[hits piano]
So this is gonna be the Manny Cooner exercise.
This is Meow,
[laughs]
m-e-o-w, Meow.
On a 1-5-1-5-1.
Now in the Manny Cooner exercise
the M is going to bringing you into the nasal resonance
which we know is so, so important.
The E vowel will lift the tongue and brighten the sound
and help you to not push out the mouth,
so we're gonna have that access here.
The AH vowel will give you a more acoustic
belty shape with the front opening.
And then the OO will bring us right back into the head
just to make sure we don't get too pushy.
So we have Manny Cooner to thank
for this great belt exercise.
So here we go,
ladies and guys on the same note.
You're starting in chest, you're moving up into mix-land,
up into head, and then reinforced falsetto
kinds of territory.
The one thing I don't want you doing
is pushing volume.
It shouldn't hurt, it shouldn't feel like a strain.
We're lightening up, you can connect as long as
you can currently go and then let it get lighter.
That way you're building the mix the right way,
the light way and not the pushed way.
So here we go with a Manny Cooner...
♪ Meow ♪
♪
So nice.
♪
Low breath.
♪
Good.
♪
So nice!
♪
That's right.
♪ Meow ♪
♪
Awesome.
♪
Good.
♪
That's right.
♪
Good.
♪ Meow ♪
♪
That's right.
♪
Right here...
♪
And breathe...
♪
Great job!
♪ Meow ♪
♪
So nice.
♪
Small...
♪
Good for you.
♪
♪ Meow ♪
♪
Good.
♪
Start adding chest...
♪
That's right...
♪
♪ Meow ♪
A few more...
♪
Stay resonant!
♪
Two more...
♪
Last one....
♪ Meow ♪
♪
Awesome job!
And I know that Manny Cooner
is very, very proud of you.
And so am I because this has just been
such an awesome How To Belt Trilogy.
♪ Whoa ♪
[hits piano]
Ha!
I finally got her.
And I'm so glad about that!
Took her down after all this nonsense.
So thank you guys for joining me
for this How To Belt Trilogy.
I really hope James, and Fathur, and all that we've had
ask questions on this Trilogy,
I hope it's been helpful for you guys.
And singers around the world, I hope this has helped you
to increase your knowledge of what belting is all about
and to try out some of these belts.
Like I say, there's more work for us
to do on belting to come.
And I'm not gonna spare these tips from you.
We're gonna do more of this in the future.
But this trilogy really helped us to kick things off.
And I hope it helped you guys.
So if you have questions that you'd like to
see us answer on the show
you can send an email to Questions@VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com.
So I just encourage you, don't lose the joy,
don't lose the passion, don't let people tell you
that you can't sing because
you and I both know it's just false, not true.
Get with a great voice teacher in your area. [♪]
Or if you're in the New York City area [♪]
or you'd like to Skype with one of our staff members [♪]
you can visit us at www.NewYorkVocalCoaching.com. [♪]
I also encourage you to download our free app. [♪]
It's for iPhone, iPad, and hopefully more in the future. [♪]
Great resources, tips, articles, videos, [♪]
all kinds of things to help you guys [♪]
get to the next level on your singing journey. [♪]
Or you can simply visit www.VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com. [♪]
I'm Justin Stoney. [♪]
We'll see you next time. [♪]
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