I was just cast as Sally from "You're A Good Man Charlie Brown" (Yaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy!) and after a few rehearsals (sp?) the music director asked it I could belt this one part of a song- that goes up to a D#. The problem is that the highest note I have ever belted is a C#- and I don't know realy how to go up higher without hurting my voice and sounding just awful. Does anyone have any advice on how to be able to learn to belt higher, or at least how to create the illusion on belting? Thank you so much,

Christina

I haven't done much belting, but what I was taught was that as you get higher you need to bring your voice back into your throat a bit and mix your belt voice and head voice for the last few notes you can belt (say from about Bb upwards in your case), increasing the amount of head voice as you go up, so that when you get to notes that are in your head voice range there isn't a conspicuous gap.

I'm sorry, this doesn't sound very well explained. Have a (very gentle) experiment, and stop if it's uncomfortable.

Good luck

Katyjay

I tried doing this but there still is a very significant jump from my chest voice to my head voice. I pretty sure I wouldn't really have to belt it as long as there wasn't really a gap between that one part and the rest of the song where I can easily sing smoothly.

Christina

What I'd suggest, then is that you sing as much of the song as you can get away with in normal chest voice rather than belting, and ask your teacher to help you work on the transition from chest to head voice.

Don't worry, everyone has trouble with this - me included

Cheers

Katyjay

I can belt fairly high. I mix my chest and head voice so I'm never entirely in one or the other. Be careful that you don't rely to heavily on your throat though, because that can be very tiring and damaging as well. It should feel like it's coming through your nose.

I know that "Charlie Brown" is a show about kid's and that kids don't really care what they sound like, so I'm planning on just going crazy and letting it out. And actually, I think it sounds better than if I would have tryed to completely control my voice.

Christina