What is Belting and How to Belt Your Singing Voice

What is Belting?: 0:00
Octave Repeat Nay for Males: 5:02
Octave Repeat Nay for Females 5:20
Octave Repeat Nae for Males: 6:17
Octave Repeat Nae for Females: 6:48
Octave Repeat Bae for Males: 7:43
Octave Repeat Bae for Females: 8:01
Octave Repeat Gug for Males: 8:59
Octave Repeat Gug for Females 9:16
Octave Repeat Mum for Males: 10:35
Octave Repeat Mum for Females 10:54

Who are we kidding? Belting is one of the coolest vocal sounds you can hear!

It doesn't matter whether you're just starting to learn to sing or have been singing for 20 years, everyone wants to learn how to belt their singing voice.

But what is belting actually, and how can you learn to belt your singing voice safely?

Belting means singing the highest notes in your voice with tons of vocal power.

To put it another way, you can think of belting your head voice notes with the power of your chest voice.

Chest voice? Head voice? Confused yet?

It's really straightforward. Here's what you need to know:
In order to sing low notes, your vocal cords must be very thick.
Just like the strings of a guitar, these thick vocal cords vibrate very slowly.
And these slow vibrations create the sound and pitches of chest voice.

In order to sing high notes, your vocal cords must be very thin.
These thin vocal cords vibrate much faster creating a faster vibration and higher notes.
These faster vibrations create the head voice register.

But in belting, you're hitting high notes with a ton of vocal power.

This happens when you stretch out the vocal cords to hit a high note, but you keep some of the thickness of the chest voice.

The result is an amazingly exciting, big and powerful sound. Belting sounds just like singing chest voice even on your highest notes, and that's something everyone wants especially in rock music.

But I should warn you: it's very easy to belt your high notes wrong and hurt yourself.

That's because it's difficult to know how much tension and pressure you should use to hit those high notes.

Instead, I'll show you 5 exercises to help you learn to belt safely and still get the powerful sound that you're looking for.

In the first exercise, we'll simply sing an octave repeat arpeggio on a bratty "nay" sound.

The bratty "Nay" exercise is fantastic at giving you the powerful sound that you're looking for while preventing you from straining.

And even though the "Nay" is not the most powerful vowel to use when belting, it still gives you a great place to start.

The next exercise we'll look at also uses an octave repeat arpeggio. This time, we'll sing the word "Nae" as in "Nasty" in a bratty way.

As soon as you sing this exercise, you'll see that the "Ae" vowel gives you a much stronger sound on the top notes in your voice.

In the third exercise, we'll continue using the octave repeat arpeggio. In this case however, we'll use an ugly "Bae" (as in "Bat").

The reason for this change is that the "B" consonant provides more back pressure for the singer. So rather than increasing tongue tension with the "N" consonant, the "B" gives you plenty of sound to use.

In the fourth exercise, we'll start using more normal sounds to learn to belt. Rather than belting with the ugly or bratty sound, in the fourth exercise we'll use the "Gug" (as in "Gutter") sound.

The beauty of this exercise is that the "G" consonant gives you a lot of glottal closure and the "uh" vowel encourages a lot of chest voice.

Both of these factors are huge in giving you a big belty sound in the high notes in your voice.

In the final exercise, we'll use the octave repeat arpeggio scale on "Mum" (as in "Mother").

This is the most normal sounding exercise we've looked at so far to help you learn how to belt. That's because it also gives you the least support on your high notes.

So if the other exercises helped you learn to belt, you can work on the "Mum" exercise last to polish up your high notes.

Learning to belt is a really rewarding skill when singing. So take your time and make sure that you're belting the right way and watch your high notes become super powerful!

[mr.monfared]

I hope my neighbors don't come to my door with a baseball bat after this lol

[thatswhatisaidCA]

As a woman with a low chest voice, i find it easier and logical I am using the men's practise. I've been doing the men's AND women's voice practise here. I have a low "crack" note (from chest to head v) but a high soprano range in head. It's a challenge to find any songs to sing at karaoke, cuz i usually need male singers' songs and they have higher chest (or mixed? Hmm...) voices than I have, but this video is a good reminder to hang in there and continue working on the mixed voice (a big challenge for me, but worth the work I'm sure). Much thanks!

[lochdeekyoutuber]

timestamps of exercises
octave repeat nay for males 5:02 & females 5:20
octave repeat nae for males 6:17 & females 6:48
octave repeat bae for males 7:43 & females 8:01
octave repeat gug for males 8:59 & females 9:16
octave repeat mum for males 10:35 & females 10:54
did this for the challenge

[PyxieK]

This has been like, the most amazing transformation in my voice. I just belted a D5 with so much power and I am in awe. This is the best voice channel ever, this and the whistle register video have helped me out so much. Thank you ❤️❤️

[laurenlongfellow]

I’m so glad I found your channel! I have an audition in a month and for once I’m gonna actually try to sing like myself and not try to emulate other people. Your videos have been a lifesaver!

[Rosannasfriend]

Thank you for explaining the holy grail of what the hell belting is vs mixing.

[charlienonya]

When you belted at the beginning you scared the shit out of me. No seriously, I'm holding the turd right now.

[putter]

One thing I’ve learned about singing is if your voice is becoming unbelievably heavy through your bridge and the noise falls apart you are probably pushing about 10 times more than you need to and you can’t have good support this way less is more and you don’t need to push or shout to belt the natural resonance will do that for you after you can do that way adding a little more pressure or less can give you colour and texture to the voice

[olaragoddy]

Thank you, I learned a lot from you and I still needs more.

[jalakarvad]

Music is a way to express yourself. Let things come naturally. Let your voice be alive. There is no right or wrong. There is price for sounding "cool". Its almost like listener feels your sacrifice for good expression. They feel that you are ready to hurt your voice a little bit to give your best for that song.

[Theamandaa]

Belting is still so difficult for me after six years of vocal practice

[silviaguidry]

thank you for the instruction - i had no idea of what belting was

[timotialban]

The harminics in this room are amazing I love it. Soecially since I'm in my bathroom.

[karaoketaylorxsingsfan]

And I agree that some singers belt wrong and some singers want to do the same belts like their favorite singer does but some of their favorite singers can belt wrong even though some of their favorite artists are natural belters still they could belt wrong and they can’t do the same belts as their favorite singer if it’s the wrong belt because they could damage their voice permanently

[simonjensen]

I really wanna learn the opposite. Consistently singing clean high notes with low power is damn difficult

[officialspock]

What is Belting and How to Belt Your Singing Voice
4:31 Octave Repeat "NAY"
5:59 Octave Repeat "NAE"
7:28 Octave Repeat "BAE"
8:46 Octave Repeat "GUG"
10:20 Octave Repeat "MUM"

[zalezbreezy]

You sing so differently then how you speak it’s so cool to hear haha

[LadyFay]

Thanks for the exercises and the explanations.

[Bæcestre]

Very difficult following Ozzys vocals on Changes. A good challenge would be Symptom Of The Universe by Black Sabbath.

[charlottevanoorschot]

Love this video! Thank you for your clear explanation and examples!