Belting and a High Larynx Position

Abstract

I HAD A DELIGHTFUL TIME MEETING John-Paul White at third international conference on Physiology and Acoustics of Singing in York, England. John-Paul is Travis Professor of Music (Voice) at Oakland University, Rochester, Minnesota. He came up to me and said, You're guy who caused my voice to break! He was kidding, of course, as he referred to an unexpected register change that he experienced for first time by singing into a straw. I could easily explain that phenomenon. As a bass (or bass baritone), he generally never experienced effect of his fundamental frequency crossing first formant frequency, which he probably kept above about 350 Hz for all singing vowels. But by singing into straw, first formant frequency was lowered to about 150 Hz, which meant that there was frequent cross-over between fundamental and F^sub 1^ as he vocalized up and down in pitch. We know now that register breaks can be triggered by this crossing of source and resonance frequencies. Following this little exchange of ideas, John-Paul wrote to me with another question: My recent sabbatical study was on belt voice as it relates to position of larynx during belting. In short, it seems that there are a fairly large number of musical theatre voice teachers who are advocating and teaching a purposely high larynx in belting, which is contrary to a traditional approach to healthy voice production. My initial findings (after observing six of leading voice teachers of professional musical theatre singers, three in New York and three in London, and also observing professionals in a number of performances) are that while larynx is indeed higher than in a traditional classical approach, good healthy technique still assumes a relaxed and relatively low laryngeal position as ideal, and makes compromises as needed from there to achieve belt quality, or as one of experts says, the larynx does rise in belt... but reluctantly! I am interested in doing further research on subject, but am interested in thoughts from your perspective. The most compelling explanation for a slightly raised larynx in belt voice is that, acoustically, there is an advantage to having first formant frequency rise with pitch. Belt voice is characterized by a strong second harmonic (also called first overtone above fundamental, which dictates pitch). If this second harmonic frequency stays below first formant frequency, it gets boosted by inertive reactance of vocal tract. For example, if an A4 (440 Hz) is belted, second harmonic is at 880 Hz. The first formant should then be even higher, perhaps 900 Hz. An open /a/ or /ae/vowel has a first formant frequency that high, and a few other wide open vowels can reach this value if vocal tract is shortened by raising larynx. …