Belting is bad. The argument has been around forever.
Classical singing, however, is good. Period.
Come on, people! It’s the 21st Century. Can you not see that the vast majority of people earning a living singing are belting? Opera companies are closing left and right. Rock concerts sell out in hours. How many people are earning a living singing chamber music? Oratorio? Even successful opera singers are eager to “cross over”.
Belting has nothing to do with chest register. (TA dominant production, long closed quotient, etc.) Belting is singing in the mask (masque). There is a big bridge in Brooklyn that you can buy on sale next week, if you get there early.
Come on, people! Read some voice research by credible people WHO ACTUALLY BELT. Read the new book by Wendy LeBorgne and Marci Rosenberg (two belters who can really sing and really know voice science). Â https://www.pluralpublishing.com/publication_voathw.htm
When is this argument going to go away? When will people who do not belt and do not know how it feels to belt stop telling people who do they are wrong???? If you don’t make the sound, don’t teach the sound and don’t tell other people what you think it is or how you think it works. If you do belt and you have never read any voice science, don’t purport to know how you do what you do and don’t teach people to do what you do, because, just maybe, they might need to come at it in a different manner.Â
Forty years, in my own life, dancing with this topic. Where, in all the world, has the same argument gone on for so long? I guess you could say it’s like talking to the people who insist the world is 6,000 years old and that there is no global warming. Science is just a hoax. There’s that bridge in Brooklyn again, in case you still want it.
Ask the people who say you can’t belt in a healthy and musically viable manner to sing in their classical sound. If you don’t love it, and they can’t make any other sound, raise an eyebrow. Why would you want to take advice from such a person? Just because you think you know, doesn’t mean you DO know.
If you know someone who says, “belting is always bad” who also teaches singing, share this blog with them and invite them to reply.