Tonight I watched a few kid belters on YouTube. Some of them were 9, 10 and 11 years old. The singing was impressive, but pretty pressured, and to me, anyway, troublesome. I would love to know what happens to these kids over time……I mean years. I was also troubled by the fact that these little girls were singing love songs. Should a 9-year-old be singing “I’m Telling You You’re Not Going”?
Our society likes loud, pushy singing, not just in kids, but in everyone. We really don’t think as much of the silvery angelic girls voices as we do of the kids who can belt to the rafters. I want to know what happens to the kid belters when they grow up. Do they turn into Whitney Houston? Look at her voice and her life……….
Belting isn’t automatically damaging, but it is stressful in what it asks for from the throat if not done well. For the same reason that the old traditions didn’t ask a child to make an adult operatic sound, we need to ask if letting a young woman belt without any limit at all is good for the voice over time. Andrea McArdle survived really well, but she sang more than she screamed.
I don’t have an answer here, just questions. There is so much we don’t know.
In a perfect world children would always look, act and sing like children, not like little adults. I think maybe this statement dates me, but that’s how I feel. How about you?