Belting is different not only between women and men, but also for different voice types. Keep reading to discover the differences for yourself and develop a healthy belting technique, custom designed for your voice.
Women
A healthy belt for the female voice means using a consistent flow of air, high resonance (especially nasal resonance), and a strong speaking voice sound that sustains into sung tones.
When the belt is right, belters say it feels like middle voice but sounds like chest voice. Belting is going to be easier for the lighter sopranos than for mezzos. Its not that you mezzos shouldn’t try it, but you may have to work a little harder to figure it out.
Men
Belting for the male voice can be fun. It’s not a huge technical feat for men to change the sound enough to create this style of singing. To create a belting sound, you need to find a forward resonating sound and a fullness of tone as you ascend in pitch.
The fullness of tone can happen from using nasal resonance. Using forward resonance may feel smaller to you, but it sounds full in the room to your audience.
Most men allow the sound to roll back as they ascend in pitch. This is a perfectly normal action to take when singing classical music. When the sound moves back, it’s called cover. In other words, the sound moves back (or uses more resonance in the throat) and the vowels slightly modify.
To make a distinction between your classical sound and your belting sound, you want to keep the sound rolling forward or use more nasal resonance. All resonators are used for singing, but for belting, the prominent resonance comes from the nasal resonator.