After 40 years in all aspects of vocal performance, I offer my thoughts regarding how to maintain a healthy vocal instrument, spirit, and body that can handle the demands of belt technique, performance, and life. Using “units of action,” or “beats” to create and maintain resonant sound, this essay pertains to all genres of singers.
Firstly, we all know a performing career is extremely demanding physically, mentally, and spiritually, so it is essential to establish a healthy daily regime that helps you to thrive. This includes the following:
Meditation and Spiritual Focus
Meditate every morning to prepare the mind and spirit for the inevitable demands of the day.
READ Eknath Easwaran’s Passage Meditation. This small book provides tools to create a life of equipoise and focus for your soul, leading you to explore your reasons for being and singing. Life can be difficult, but think of the joys. Performance is one! And if life has thrown you a lot of problems, then FAKE joy. Try lots of sarcasm…”Fine, oh I am JUST fine,” and “Whatever!” until you get there. It feels silly, but “Fake it until you make it” really works. Such thought exploration can excite blood flow, change neural pathways, and get your body ready to sing and belt. Make fun of life and make life fun.
Explore “Emotional Freedom Tapping”. EFT is a definitive tool that uses positive thought to create new neural pathways and heal PTSD. Make it one of your life habits…it works.
Exercise
- Strengthen the body and core to provide strong air pressure for the vocal cords.
- Do daily crunches, planks, Pilates, yoga and stretches. Then add walks and your own favorite exercise.
Food and Vocal Health
- Eat vegetables, fruit, whole grains, fish, lean protein, beans, nuts, eggs.
- Drink LOTS of water. Especially when tired.
- Several times a day, use saline spray in the nose and throat to clean the vocal tract.
- Steam daily, and use glycerin spray in the throat and drops in your water bottle to keep the pharynx moist.
- Singers take in a lot of pollen and dust laden air, so this routine is logical and essential.
- READ D. Garfield Davies’s Care of the Professional Voice.
Repertoire Practice and Research
When building your repertoire, research key, tempo, phrasing, breaths, form, texture, composer, lyricist, librettist, choreography, story and history as you go, and BEFORE you sing the piece, so that you can establish WHY you want to perform it. The WHY gives you WILL, POWER, and INTENT, and therefore creates renewed energy and intensity. Proper technique and healthy belt will follow.
READ Dr. Alyson McLamore’s Musical Theatre: An Appreciation. This gem of a book describes the antecedents to musical theater . . . the “fusion of long-standing operatic traditions merged with various kinds of popular song and dance which resulted in musical theatre.” Comprehensive information about the musical stage in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries is included.
Vocal Exercises
- The creation of healthy belt and beautiful vocal sound require that you know the basics of efficient and resonant sound production.
- READ Richard Davis’s The Beginning Singer’s Guide. It is essential to learn how your instrument functions. This concise, lucid book is for all singers.
- Remember to sing as you speak and speak as you sing. Allow space, support (sternum engagement), energy, color and resonance as you speak so the transition to singing and belt is perfectly normal.
- Do Vocal on-sets, pitch exercises, appoggio breathing exercises, and range, resonance and strength exercises everyday. Know the goal of the exercise.
Acting Intent, Resonance, Color, and Desire
Belting and singing must have vocal color and ideas and intent, otherwise you will sound boring, no matter how beautiful the voice. It is imperative you find the “beats” or units of action in each phrase and word. Each beat renews physical, vocal and mental energy and tactics, which are crucial to develop stamina.
READ: https://www.thepreparedperformer.com/actwithease for a very basic introduction to acting technique.
Prepare for Your Audition
Prepare properly for auditions! You will feel secure, committed, and powerful.
READ Erik Stein’s No Caution!: A Step-by-Step Guide to Preparing Auditions for Universities, Colleges, Conservatories and Beyond. A consummate performer and Casting Director for Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts, Stein has auditioned and helped thousands of singers.
Healthy Belt
With your regime in place, you can now create a healthy and exciting belt sound.
“Belt voice” calls for extremely energized tall posture with stretched thorax and engaged sternum, released jaw, tongue, and body tension, energized and very open vocal tract and flexible vocal cords, and increased resonance to tune into the brighter parts of the wave band.
All of the above happens if the power that comes from intense imagination, desire, will and commitment induce thoughts that create intent, tactics and renewed “beats” or units of action. This thought power utilizes the entire singing apparatus to its fullest extent.
Watch a lion roar! A giant pipe seems to open from that cavernous mouth to his tail. Intent causes intercostals and pharynx to stretch dramatically as he roars…“this is my territory!”, or simply “I am King!”. He creates a sound that gives us shivers utilizing perfect vocal technique. But that is certainly not what he is thinking about!
Choose from among powerful action words and assign your “beat” to each word and phrase of your music, thinking of the overall story, and notice what happens to your vocal apparatus. For instance, with great intensity, “OVERACT” as you speak each action word: Jubilant, Amused, Sarcastic, Secret, Grief-Stricken, Puzzled, Shocked, Desperate, Aghast, Petrified, and Repulsed. Apply this same tool to every word and phrase in your song, keeping in mind the entire story, and you are on your way to exciting sound production.
