Every singer wants to be able to belt on cue without destroying their voice. There are key vocal techniques that teach you how to belt without hurting your voice. Several things have to line up before belting safely and effectively can happen. Even the best of singers have to learn these techniques to protect their voice and hold up to the demands of a professional career.
All of these techniques are taught inside my Cole Vocal Method, a holistic vocal technique training program that builds a professional world-class singing voice.
1. Vocal + Breath Support
You’ll need both vocal and breath support to be able to belt. The first thing is building your vocal strength through technique (exercises) to build your stamina. Start with my Singers Gift Vocal Warmups here.
Secondly, you’ll want to develop your breath control. It starts with building your breath, improving your inhale by breathing down into the ribcage and then extending your exhale. You want to build to your exhale up to twice as long as your inhale. For example. Inhale for 10 counts and exhale for 20. Start with 5 repetitions and build up to 10 repetitions. These diaphragmatic breathing exercises are also included with my Singers Gift Vocal Warmup warmups. Link above.
2. Decrease Tension in your Vocal Instrument
Tension is the enemy of a singer. And there are so many places it’s easy to accumulate. The muscles surrounding the voice as well as comprising the voice are the areas of focus. The throat, neck muscles, jaw, and tongue are the biggest areas to decrease tension, but tension in the overall body can accumulate and cause problems. Vocal problems alone can stem from deep contractions in the muscles of the voice.
Trying to belt on top of tight muscles won’t work. Your vocal instrument needs to be free to be able to belt without hurting your voice.
The first place to start is decreasing in the neck, tongue and jaw muscles. Stretching these muscles will help.
Neck stretch: Let your head fall forward in a slumped position. Take a deep breath and breathe into where it feels tight. Then on the exhale let your head slump more. Do this a few times to help the muscles stretch and release. Muscles in their longest positions are the most released. Back of the neck tension causes problems with belting by overusing the neck muscles which only wear out the voice.
Tongue stretch: Take a gauze pad or slightly wet paper towel and pull your tongue (gently) to start stretching it (don’t overdo it). This will help to lengthen the tongue and release tension in the muscle itself making it more agile and easier to sing.
Jaw stretch: Slowly stretch your jaw with your hand with a gentle pulling motion. If you have TMJ be careful not to yank the jaw or exaggerate any clicking. You can avoid that by moving your jaw gently and slowly. Less tension in the jaw will help with belting safely as it tends to contract and cause more tension when singing more powerful notes.
3. Get Control of Your Tongue
It’s important to practice movements controlling the front and back of your tongue to get control of your belt (and build a belt!) The tongue plays an important role in a healthy and effective belt.
In my Singers Gift Vocal Warmups I teach an exercise that helps you learn to control the back of your tongue. For starters. Bring an imaginary glass to your lips as if you were going to drink. Notice what happens in the back of your mouth. Did you feel the throat open? This is a movement you do throughout the day. A movement your body is used to that helps to open the throat and drop the back of the tongue. It’s a place to start.
4. Build Laryngeal Depth
In vocal technique, we focus on building laryngeal depth. This helps us to control the belt. When we belt we use more air pressure that in an untrained voice can push the larynx too high into an unstable position causing breaks or cracks in vocal production and basically destabilizing the belt. In my Singers Gift Vocal Warmups we start by holding the jaw down which lowers the laryngeal muscles while you sing training your voice to build laryngeal depth so belting is easier.
5. Get Control of the Soft Palate
Getting control of the movement of the soft palate helps the belt. When the soft palate comes down to low it mutes the voice and causes problems with flat pitch or a thin belt. It’s also difficult to sing high notes without a lifted soft palate. But like everything with the voice, these are subtle movements that need to be trained into the voice to create a natural reflex without overdoing it.
When you bring that imaginary cup of water to your lips we practiced in #3 above – this time notice what happens on the roof of the mouth. Do you notice it lifting or opening? Creating more space inside the mouth? Notice how it’s a small subtle movement? In practicing your vocal technique you want to get control of this movement. Lifting the soft palate also connects to the tongue lowering. Both happen together in a movement to open the throat. Doing this will help you belt effectively and healthfully!
Start here: The Singers Gift Vocal Warmups. The Cole Vocal Method starts with these warmups. Get your set here and start building your belt and freeing your voice! Exercises in audio and video format.
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Check out our Singers Gift Vocal Warmups. Rated the best vocal warmups on the planet, used by Grammy winners! Experience our transformative vocal warmups to warm up, eliminate vocal tension and free your voice. Comes with 17 vocal warmups on audio and video + cooldowns to condition your voice post-performance. Learn more here.