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.

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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[jenlfpotter]

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.