How To Belt Safely (And Where Belting Comes From!) | Discover Voices | Classic FM

We asked West End and Broadway star Kerry Ellis - best known for "painting herself green" as Elphaba in Wicked! - how she achieves that big, belting, musical theatre sound in her voice.
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She had a few tips on how to reach the lofty heights of 'Defying Gravity' and 'Memory', as well as an interesting anecdote about the surprising origins of belting...
Catch Kerry Ellis in the Queen Machine Symphonic tour in April as she joins forces with Queen tribute band, Queen Machine, and the 15-piece London Symphony Rock Orchestra in an all-new staging of Queen’s music.
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[@qwert2020]

She makes it sound so easy

[@User-ut3ms]

She’s amazing

[@jeff420sparky8]

why you have to take breath 1:23?

[@bodleyhihou]

What a question

Fantastic video! Keep it up! Would you like to be RUclips friends? :]

[@jenlfpotter3870]

I'm not a fan of anything operatic or opera in general, because they belt their voices to such a degree, I've always thought you could permanently trash your vocal cords, not to mention any muscles which control any movement in the regions of your throat. You can have a perfectly lovely voice without having to scream and shout or belt to the world at large. My own voice, although I can project it and be really very loud acording to my mum who also said I yelled as a newborn, yes, I want to make myself heard, but in a nice controlled calm way as I think all singing should be a controlled and calming thing. If I was singing professionally, which is one of my long term goals, I would probably follow Nora Jones, Katie Meluah, KD Lang's examples, Enya is another example of somebody who can make a lovely full sound... although she multi tracks her voice very many times to project it.

[@strangehumanbeing6565]

Opera isn’t belting or shouting (belting is also not the same as shouting without support) though. And using classical technique when singing requires an immense amount of vocal control because you’re not screaming out notes, you’re using the resonance and space in your body to project your voice loud enough to fill out the entire space you’re performing in (hence why opera singers most often do not use microphones. There’s also a huge difference between the approach to singing that live actors use and the approach musicians use. Theatre is dramatic and changes in volume, dynamic, style etc. are used to reflect what the character is feeling and what the audience is supposed to feel, which the theatric accompaniment also reflects, whereas musicians who make more low-key music can get away with having a softer and pop tone. Sure, the operatic style of singing isn’t for everyone but it sure isn’t more damaging than the breathier tone that someone like Norah Jones use.

Great stuff :) Would you like to be RUclips friends? :]