by Christianne Roll
From Journal of Voice, Vol. 30, No. 5, 2016
Summary: Background. Traditionally, the female belt range extended to C5, but in current rock/pop Broadway productions, women are often required to belt up to an F5. This recent extension of the belt voice beyond C5 is a significant change, and female musical theater singers need effective strategies to produce these higher belt notes.
Objective: The intent of this study was to gain a clear understanding of the strategies used to successfully teach and produce the higher range of the female musical theater belt voice.
Methods: The study is a qualitative design composed of two data collection methods: interviews with four nationally recognized master musical theater voice teachers and 17 of their female belt students, and observations of the master teachers working with these students in their private studios.
Results: There was much consensus among the teachers and singers on the strategies of producing the higher belt range, such as incorporating more head voice involvement with closed vowels and maintaining a speech-like quality.
Singers report that they produce high belt notes with more of a mix vocal approach. Teachers suggest that female voice type may determine the extent of a singer’s ability in this high belt range.
Conclusions: The high belt will be narrow, based on closed vowels, mixing in some degree of head voice function. Although this study has revealed some guidelines for the female musical theater high belt and similar strategies among
master teachers, voice teachers should be aware of the variability of their female musical theater voice students.
Key Words: Female belting, Belt voice, Musical theater, Broadway, High belt, Contemporary belt, Teaching, Singing.
INTRODUCTION
Female belt singing is an established form of female vocal production, and the demands for this type of singing in musical theater are increasing and evolving. The female musical theater belt voice emerged on the musical comedy stage at the beginning of the 20th century as a way for the un-amplified female voice to be heard in its middle, more speech-like range. Thus, the Broadway belt sound emerged as female musical theater singers reworked their vocal approach to sound more like speech in the range of C4 to C5. The original Broadway belt sound is most often credited to Ethel Merman in the 1930 Gershwin production of Girl Crazy. In this production, Merman sustained a C5 in the song ‘‘I Got Rhythm’’ with a powerful sound, giving her, and the Broadway belt sound, immediate recognition. Currently, within musical theater singing, the female belt is the most archetypal sound.
