Mezzoid@a... wrote: Mezzoid@a... wrote:
> BUT > Mary Martin was a belter > Ethel Merman was a belter > > These women did NOT use mikes in their performances. The use of mikes on > Bway came much much later. So what is the difference between the belters of > yesterday, who could sing w/o amplification and be heard in the back row, and > the belters of today, who can't be heard in the third row w/o mikes????? > There seems to be a radical difference in overtones, IMHO!!
and
> And that's the sound I like and that I THINK I can reproduce reasonably well > - although when I tried at last year's NATS workshop, I got thru 6 measures > before the clinician stopped me and said, "You're not belting!"
And that's why nobody on Broadway can sing well anymore. Of course, I don't mean that literally. It's the pernicious influence of the microphone and electronically-enhanced loud orchestsra accompaniments. Even the good singers nowadays have a manufactured and artificial sound to me that I do not like to listen to. Which is why I only go to opera except in small, unmiked theaters (like Signature Theater in Arlington, VA), or when somebody drags me along.
So now we know - the term "belting" now seems to mean a type of singing that works on microphones over electronic orchestras in big theaters. And they won't get me to spend my money to see them. Is that how old fogey-dom creeps in? ("In my day, we walked to school ten miles in a blizzard!")
Peggy
-- Margaret Harrison, Alexandria, Virginia, USA "Music for a While Shall All Your Cares Beguile" mailto:peggyh@i...
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