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From:  "takooda" <toda@m...>
Date:  Thu Aug 8, 2002  4:11 pm
Subject:  Re: Belting for the opera singer: where to start?

Dear Molly,

Mike is right about the head voice (classical)/chest voice (belting)
issue for women (and countertenors), but I'd go a little further to
say that belting can actually mess with your classical technique.

As a countertenor who has also done a fair amount of belting (in the
tenor range) himself, I've definitely noticed that each voice is
territorial. For instance, if I sing a lot of pop, it puts a big hole
in the middle voice of my countertenor range for the rest of the day.

It probably has to do the muscular coordination used to get through
the passagio. The voice gets accustomed to navigating the passagio a
certain way, and it's challenging enough to do it in one way, let
alone two ways. My ittie bittie brain gets confused, I guess :-)

Of course, there are exceptions - some people can do both with no
problem. Linda Ronstadt is incredible at switching from legit soprano
to belting. Maybe you can do it too. The deeper and richer your chest
voice, though, the harder it will be.

That said - I'm a big supporter of people exploring different genres.
God knows I do it despite the technical issues that come up.

Good luck!

Tako




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