{"id":2356,"date":"2012-12-31T19:42:51","date_gmt":"2012-12-31T23:42:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rockwellblake.com\/blog\/?p=2356"},"modified":"2014-11-27T18:44:19","modified_gmt":"2014-11-27T22:44:19","slug":"belting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rockwellblake.com\/blog\/2012\/12\/31\/belting\/","title":{"rendered":"Belting"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I mentioned \u201cBelting<\/a>\u201d in my blog, \u201cWhat\u2019s the Buzz?\u201d, <\/a>I left the reference hanging there without explanation. With the hope that somebody might want to know what I think that word means, I began putting this blog together. The scientific article<\/a> that Garcia wrote and Debbie, my wife, found just keeps on making me happy. I introduced this text in \u201cRoyal Registers\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and it is the confirmation of my long held opinion.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are so many ways to hide stuff in plain sight. People have been creating new\u00a0\u201cvocal technique\u201d since singing was deemed important by just putting a few choice words together. But what about using just one word? What about \u201cBelting\u201d? It has a long history of use as a label for the old traditional style of singing that was once well practiced\u00a0on the old unamplified Broadway stages. It would seem to be a scanty bikini bottom of a word. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Question: What can you hide behind that little word? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Answer: Ignorance.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I grit my teeth when someone calls a\u201cSTYLE\u201d of singing a technique. I used to hear people talk about \u201cRossini Technique\u201d, \u201cVerdi Technique\u201d, \u201cMozart Technique\u201d while I was still performing. Some even dispensed with using a composer\u2019s style as a basis and used geographical terms\u00a0to create \u201cFrench Technique\u201d and \u201cGerman Technique\u201d etc. Some just claim that they have discovered things no one else bothered to document and come up with something like \u201cExtended Vocal Technique\u201d<\/a>. This one was brought to my attention by a roving vocal pedagogue making a presentation at Plattsburgh State University. I was \u201clucky\u201d to be between contracts and in town for that lecture. Lately, it seems that an effort to define an \u201cAmerican Technique\u201d has begun. This kind of obfuscation has been a habit in the singing business since before I started gettin’ busy singing. I can now propose another \u201cAnswer\u201d to the above \u201cWhat can you hide\u201d question and it is: Willful Ignorance.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The snooty singing teacher<\/a> who really loves \u201cThe Buzz<\/a>\u201d and wants to disbelieve in \u201cChest Voice\u201d<\/a> has a bunch of friends out there who want to make hay out of declaring \u201cBelting\u201d a dangerous technique that only the Hyper Educated can understand. Wikipedia<\/a> is a good place to get this condescending message explained in confusing detail.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0Wikipedia is wrong. \u201cChest Voice\u201d is \u201cBelting\u201d and \u201cBelting\u201d is \u201cChest Voice\u201d. The \u201cperceived\u201d dangers of singing in \u201cChest Voice\u201d are bad enough to convince a large gaggle of pedants not to teach it at all, and for at least one individual to denounce it as myth. When you hear Fanny Brice<\/a> or Ethel Merman<\/a> \u201cBelting\u201d a song, you\u2019ve got to believe in the vocal product they produced. You can dislike it, and you would not be alone in your epicurean displeasure. The Wikipedia writer would seem to want everyone to be confused enough to allow him\/her to be the go to person for learning this \u201cNEW\u201d technique. Boy, would I love to know if that Wikipedia writer is a \u201cBuzz\u201d devotee. If so, the student would be sure to get stuck in that studio for as long as the student could afford to pay the price of lessons and never produce a Fanny or Ethel like noise, or even one tone in \u201cChest Voice\u201d. I think the \u201cChest Voice\u201d denier<\/a> must never have heard of Fanny or Ethel.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cBelting\u201d is all about keeping those vocal chords slapping together<\/a> so that they produce a brilliant sound. The video examples\u00a0I am including in this blog\u00a0are not exaggerations. They are examples of what everyone CAN do. Anyone wanting to learn to \u201cBelt\u201d has an easier journey than the student of Opera Singing. The \u201cBelter\u201d does have to learn about all the tools an Opera Singer uses, but is not asked to use them in as complex a manner as the Opera Singer. If you want me to be snooty about it, I would just say that Opera Singing is a lot more sophisticated.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cBelting\u201d is a wonderful, honest, practical and impressive style of singing. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Fanny Brice<\/strong><\/h2>\n