Belt Your Face Off! A How-To Starter Guide For Broadway Belt Singing By Felicia Ricci Introduction Welcome to the whimsical e-book guide Belt Your Face Off!, in which you will learn to belt your face off! Meaning, sing in a belt sound -- a kind of singing that's currently very popular in Broadway shows and pop music. This is a starter guide designed to get your toes wet before you dive into a large and undulating ocean known as honing your belting craft. This e-book is a precursor to my complete online belting course, which features extensive video, audio, and text that systematically teaches you how to belt. Who Am I? I'm Jean Valjean. Actually, I'm Felicia Ricci -- singer, performer, author, and voice teacher. I was standby to the role of Elphaba in the San Francisco company of Wicked, where I got to perform over forty times. In order to sing Elphaba's songs, I really had to master my belting technique, not just to reach the notes, but to do so over and over, in a healthy, sustainable way. My belting practice and exercises are outlined in this e-book and then covered in great detail in my Belt Your Face Off! video course (available at www.FeliciaRicci.com) -- both of which are designed to get you belting with a full, beautiful, Broadway and/or pop sound. As far as instruction goes, I've been a voice teacher for many years, coaching students all over the country, honing my teaching style to be as communicative as possible through interactive and easy-to-follow lessons. (I've been told I'm fun, too.)

Belt Your Face Off: A Clarification I sort of hate the phrase "belt your face off" because it makes absolutely no sense, verb-to-noun-agreement-wise. How does one belt one's face? It's like saying "twirl your brain" or "celebrate your fax machine." Nevertheless, "belt your face off" -- reviled/celebrated phrase that it is -- has in the musical theater community become synonymous with a distinctive no-holds-barred, stand-and-deliver, shake-the-rafters, sing-to-the-exit-row, shake-the-earth passion that causes audiences to stand to their feet cheering, then turn to their neighbor and say, "Wow, he/she really knows how to belt his/her face!" (The irony is that belting is actually a very controlled, focused process, one that doesn’t so much require huge sound but huge control of sound, and the artful wielding of breath, mouth shape, palate, and physical stance.) But who am I to judge an idiomatic phrase? “Belt Your Face Off” has a catchy ring to it, one that captures my teaching style: informed, but lighthearted, with a little bit of an ironic edge. Because learning to sing needn't feel like torture; it can be fun and full of whimsy. Ammiright? So, first thing's first.

Let's talk about singing. Singing. What is it? In scientific terms, singing is producing sound (or phonating) through your vocal folds, or (as they're more commonly called) vocal cords, which are in delicious mucous membranes that stretch across your larynx or "voice box." The process is (basically) that you produce breath in your lungs, powered by your diaphragm; the breath rushes through your vocal folds, they vibrate, and then sound comes out of your mouth. The higher your pitch, the smaller your folds, and the edges that are vibrating are thinner and more focused -- which is what happens when you belt. And now you know how to sing. The end. Bye! Only kidding. So, where are your vocal folds? First, start talking. Listen to yourself. Those are your vocal cords. The things you're using right now to speak. Place your hand gently on your throat. Gently! Don't press too hard, you masochist. Feel the vibration as you're speaking, perhaps speaking these words as you read them, but more likely saying to yourself or to the friend you've coerced into reading this with you: "Wow, this e-book is written in a supremely over-the-top way. But you know what? I like it." That vibration that you feel is your breath rushing through your vocal cords, causing them to vibrate. Speaking. Nice job, although it really wasn't that hard. So how is speaking different from singing? Singing, as Professor Harold Hill reminds us in The Music Man, is basically sustained talking. Like, holding out notes for longer than you do when you're talking. Unless you're reeeeeally weeeeeeird and while talking you drag notes oouuuuuut on one piiiiiiitch to annoyyyyyy people, in which case, I salute you -- that takes real commitment to being a mild and yet significant nuisance to society. It's that kind of commitment and perseverance that will get you to become a great singer. There are other key differences that separate speaking from singing, but we'll get there. And in so doing, we'll address breath control, tone, resonance, pitch, and a host of other fun stuff. Why is singing so hard? That may or may not be a question some of you have asked, depending on how you view singing. For some, singing comes naturally. For others, it's a struggle. This is due to a variety of reasons, some of which are under our control, some of which aren't. Maybe the anatomy of your singing organs make things an uphill battle; maybe your vocal folds are less flexible than average; maybe your palate is not particularly malleable and you have a limited range or find yourself stuck once you reach a certain note; maybe you've conditioned yourself to speak a certain way that depresses your larynx, or you shove it upward; maybe you have difficulty navigating the interaction between breath pressure and your folds because you don't have the muscle control yet; maybe you have a large amount of jaw or tongue tension, which gets in the way of your sound; maybe you haven't developed your breath or diaphragm and so find you run out of air almost instantly; maybe your ear is not finely tuned to perceive slight variations in pitch and you have trouble matching notes or staying on key…. Wow. Singing sounds like it sucks.

But it doesn't! Because, believe it or not, all of the above challenges are surmountable. The truth is -- as "hard" as singing seems, it's really a collection of fundamental ideas or facts that you simply need to learn, practice, learn to refine and re-calibrate, then ultimately master, or make second nature. Those fundamentals are: 1. Breath. 2. Breath. (I say it twice because IT REALLY IS THAT IMPORTANT.) 3. Palate shape. 4. Tongue. 5. Resonance. 6. Larynx (or voice box). 7. Body alignment. There you go. The pillars of singing. There are, of course, other factors, like pitch, vibrato, color and tone, phrasing and interpretation. But when you get down to it -- if you really want to understand the building blocks of singing, they are: breath (x2!), palate, tongue, resonance, and body alignment -- from which all other qualities emerge. For example, you can't have pitch without breath, and you can't sing in a head voice (or soprano) without knowing how to manipulate your palate. Some people may disagree with me on what the pillars of singing are -- citing pitch, for example, as one of them -- but pitch to me resides as a function of these other things. And pitch can seem like an abstract concept when you're starting out. So, in my opinion, it's better to ground singing instruction in the physical here-and-now, discussing the more accessible, tangible, physical factors that reside in your body (like resonance), before discussing what can result from mastering these techniques (like pitch). Make sense? If so, great! If not, whatever! It will all make sense eventually! Breath (x2) Breath creates the actual sound of singing, in the same way a musician must blow into his oboe in order for it to play a melody (or her oboe, or any instrument that uses breath -- I just chose oboe and used the masculine possessive because I used to date a guy in high school who played the oboe and I was like, "Why did you choose to take up the oboe?" and then we broke up. On a separate note, he was gay). Aside from the fact that you can't physically sing without breath -- any more than you can start a car without an engine -- breath also works to shape your sound depending on how you release, or exhale, the breath -- with what speed or intensity, for example, or how much of a breathy sound you let seep into your tone (think Britney Spears singing anything, ever -- that's breathy singing). Breath contributes to pitch (high or low), dynamics (loud or soft), vocal quality (tone, color) and a whole other bunch of stuff. If you were a painter, it would be like your brush and your palette. And your canvas. And the little artistic beret that you wear. It's that important.

Why am I belaboring this point? Because, if you're serious about singing, you should work on breath a lot. A lot a lot. A lot a lot a lot. All day long, for as many days as you can stand. Or, if we're being more reasonable, 15-30 minutes a day every day for at least a week or two before you start getting into the nitty gritty of belting. Because belting relies on consistent and efficient breathing that you must perform relaxed and free of tension. How will you work on this? We'll get there shortly. Palate Shape Your hard palate is what holds your teeth in place, also known as the roof of your mouth. You use this hard palate in singing when you bounce sound off of it (or resonate). But the trickier, more interesting one that I want to talk about is your soft palate, which is behind your hard palate, closer to your trachea and esophagus (windpipe and food pipe thing). Your soft palate is flexible, meaning you can manipulate it and move it around. Here's proof. You're probably yawning already from reading this e-book, but, for the sake of scientific experimentation, I'd like you to yawn again. Really open that mouth and let that yawn rip! There -- right there! You're lifting your soft palate! Feel it? Look in the mirror and shine a flashlight into your mouth. Try to recreate the sensation of yawning. Once you do, you'll see your soft palate rise up and, most likely, your tongue depress down. Pretty weird and cool, right? We'll discuss some exercises that will get you better acquainted with your palate. I just wanted you to meet your soft palate so you two could be friends. I think you'll like getting to know each other. He's a real softie. [And, scene.] Tongue Your tongue likes to taste stuff, and it also likes to help (or hinder) vowel creation while singing. Vowel creation refers to the process of popping out whatever vowel you're singing at the time. For instance, if you were singing Aaaaaaveee Mariiiiiiiiiia ("Ave Maria") you would have to adjust not just how wide your jaw is open, where your soft palate is, but also the shape of your tongue. On the /ah/* of Aaaave your tongue is (hopefully) laying flat. But on the iiiii (or /ee/) of Maria, your tongue is propped up slightly in back, which helps to differentiate these sounds, ultimately forming lyrics. Ta-da! (Lyrics are a whole other business which we'll address briefly in this book and more fully in my singing course, but don't get too worried or neurotic about them now; there's plenty of time to be neurotic later in life, like when trying to manage your 401K.)

I said that tongue can hinder your singing because many people hold tension in their tongues (including your charming author) and it takes some artful vocalizing and technique work to get Mr. T to lay flat when he's supposed to, and stand at attention when he's not, without hampering sound production or getting in the way, like fending off an overly protective mother while trying to make out in the basement with your gay boyfriend after you've discussed his oboe-playing. *The IPA, or international pronunciation alphabet, was designed to get everybody on the same page about which vowels we are talking about and how to pronounce them. If you're a serious singer you should buy a book on it and learn the different symbols, as tiny variations of vowels can contribute to big changes in terms of singing technique and improvements. In the meantime, however, I'll be spelling things out in this e-book phonetically. Resonance At this point we're going to get slightly more nuanced in terms of talking about the physical process of singing. As we discussed moments ago, singing is sound produced by breath via your vocal folds which comes out your mouth and if it's good then people clap and feel great about the world. But there are a few more steps to it. Sound doesn't just gush out your mouth without touching other parts of your body. In fact, if it did, the notes wouldn't be able to be manipulated or shaped into recognizable vowels or sounds. It would just be like when you stretch a rubber band between your fingers and pluck it and then it kind of sounds like a guitar string. What I'm trying to say is: your vocal instrument -- like most other musical instruments -- relies on your physical body in order to produce sound and resonate. Where sound resonates is where I like to think that it launches and lands after you produce it. It's where the sound goes so it can vibrate and reverberate off of your body. It's where the terms "chest" and "head' voice come from: lower, chestier sounds, resonate on your chest, while higher, lighter, airier soprano sounds resonate on your head. The thing is, vocal resonance can’t be created by any direct effort, but is rather an interaction achieved through letting go and forming a space to let the breath and sound find their sweet spot. We'll talk in a bit more detail about this in this e-book (and in great depth in the singing lesson course at www.FeliciaRicci.com) but the main takeaway for right now is: it's important to know where you're "aiming" your sound for it to resonate properly. And, in the case of belting, it can really help to have some sort of direction or location to which you're aiming in order to reel in and control what could otherwise feel like an unwieldy and uncontrollable practice of "yell-singing." Like an archer at target practice, aiming your resonance helps refine your craft and ensures that you're not popping out notes all over the place in a super inefficient (and dangerous -- in the case of the archer) manner. As I said earlier, belting is not actually a giant sound. We use tons of breath and breath compression, but the actual amount of sound we're creating is very focused like a laser -- and knowing where in your body that laser is pointing is key. Larynx

Your larynx is your voice box -- the thing that holds your vocal folds, or vocal cords. Let’s locate where this is on your throat. For dudes, it’s where your Adam’s apple is. For ladies, it’s where that little ridge on your neck is, which is like a mini lady Adam’s apple, and moves up then down whenever you swallow. While belting, it’s important that you maintain a neutral larynx, meaning that itstays down and doesn’t ride up as your pitch gets higher. In general, this can be achieved through releasing tension. One way to do this is by channeling your energy down into your diaphragm, butt, and feet. Think of it like a counterweight: you place an emphasize on the sensation of being pulled down, as sound floats freely within your larynx. This helps you to relax and not pull up into your shoulders, neck, and throat. Body Alignment and Releasing Tension Further The last pillar of singing technique is knowing what the heck to do with your body, and appreciating that singing isn't an isolated process that occurs from the neck up and then we're done with it. On the contrary, singing is a full-body experience. The whole body, head to toe, is engaged. This is why many effective warmups and techniques involve getting the whole gang (meaning body parts) involved. And I'm not just talking about using your diaphragm -- although that is extremely crucial, and is frequently inhibited by tension in your body -- I'm talking about posture, stance, and using your butt. That's right: your butt. In terms of posture, a common problem is that people thrust their heads forward like they're chickens pecking at the air, while meanwhile their chest region is collapsed with their shoulders rotated inward. This blocks breath and makes singing a bajillion times harder. So please, even as you're just beginning, get into the habit of using proper alignment while singing. This means: Stand up straight! Shoulders back. Chest raised. Chin back, tucked into the neck, sort of like if you were trying to make a double chin (lookin' cute). You don't have to go too crazy, just get that chin back. Also imagine that you have a string pulling at the back-top of your head ever-so-gently. Feet should be firmly planted, rooted to the ground, like you're a damn tree! It's important that you don't stick your butt too far back or too far forward. Occasionally, when you're really working on belting and diaphragm compression, it's helpful to tighten your butt muscles and really get you to crank out the kind of breath that's going to allow you to focus your sound. Mini-Wrap-Up So now that you understand what makes singing singing, you're probably thinking (as I did, for many years, when I was starting out): "That's all well and good. But how do I practice? Like, what do I do? It's not enough to know these things in my mind; I have to know these things in my body!" and, my friends, you couldn't be more right. So, in this next section, we'll talk about effective practice and what that looks like. It's tricky to impart the best approaches via the page -- as singing is very much a trial-and-error, show-and-tell type process -- but I'll do my best to leave you with some beginner exercises and stuff you can try to get the ball rolling. The best way to get serious about this stuff is to check out the video and audio components of my lesson course so you can see me looking bug-eyed and demonstrating a bunch of really helpful

exercises that will get you to sing properly and -- because, at this point, I'm basically loving the phrase (it's the freaking title of the book, after all) -- belt your face off. Exercises To Get The Ball Rolling. Breath: Activate Your Diaphragm What is this mythical diaphragm to which I have repeatedly referred? Your diaphragm is in your gut. It's a muscle that expands and contracts with you as you breathe, working essentially like an expanding balloon to help fill you up with air. Of course, your lungs do the actual air exchange, but shallow, limited breath that feels like it starts and ends in your lungs -- often accompanied by a puffed-up chest, or raised shoulders -- is the bad kind of breathing that's detrimental to singing. Take a deep breath right now. It's okay if your chest swelled a little, but in general the upper part of your torso (i.e. chest) should have remained almost completely stationary. And your shoulders? Those bad boys should have remained relaxed and unmoving. So what should have moved? Your diaphragm! It's all about the 'phragm, baby. The way a diaphragm works is that it balloons, or gets bigger, as you breathe in (meaning, you stick your stomach out, like after a big meal) and it deflates, or gets smaller, or contracts, as you breath out (meaning, you stick your stomach in, like you're sucking in your stomach for a photo shoot). Technically the getting bigger/small thing happens in a complete 360 degree circle (including your sides and back) but when you're starting out it's easier to track and gauge the movement by focusing on your belly. Some people find the breathing and movement of a diaphragm counterintuitive, but just think about it. It makes sense. Ballooning out means you're filling up with air. If it seems counterintuitive or weird, try lying down on the ground or your bed on your back. Try to relax as if you're falling asleep, even though this book is riveting and you're at the edge of your seat. Really get into the rhythm of breathing easily and deeply. Don't think about it. Just think about something fun or relaxing like going to the beach, and or going to the beach and seeing Channing Tatum by the water, shirtless. Are you breathing okay? Good. Now peek down at your stomach. If you're (really, truly) relaxed and not in your head about it, your stomach will be rising (expanding, or sticking out) as you breathe in, and falling (contracting, or sucking in) as you breathe out. Congrats, you're a singer! In all seriousness, this is the sensation that you need your body to memorize. It's pure diaphragm action, working to fill you with breath efficiently and powerfully, and also to help you to release it in a controlled and deliberate way so you don't run out of juice in the middle of a note or phrase. So keep working on getting that diaphragm in gear. Once you feel like you've mastered it on the floor, gradually transition to standing. Then focus on adding some sound. Instead of worrying about singing while breathing in this new way, you could release your breath on a simple,

sustained /s/ sound, like a singing-snake. The more you practice, the longer you should be able to release your breath, with your diaphragm, on the s sound. Keep practicing. If it feels weird, keep doing it. This needs to become automatic. There are many other breath control exercises, designed both to activate your diaphragm and learn how to control it during release. It's important that your practice becomes incrementally more challenging. After you've learned to control the release of breath to create the /s/ snake sound, try to do a lip trill, which means letting your lips vibrate while you hum a sound (this exercise is actually difficult to describe on the page – Google search "lip trill" and check out a YouTube video if you don't know what I'm talking about). Since you can create a lip trill sound on a pitch, what I typically do (and what I guide you to do in my singing course) is create a simple sequence of vocal warm-ups sung as lip trills -- each of them getting progressively longer. As you work on your breath control and capacity, you can continue to increase the duration of these vocal exercises, thereby testing your progress and continuing to challenge yourself. As I tell my students, if you think you've maxed on the amount of breath you can take in -- or how deeply you can compress your diaphragm to squeeze out the last bit of breath -- you're probably wrong. You can always go further. Always. Until you explode. Try not to hurt yourself, though. Just, be reasonable. But also, keep going. Keep going! Okay, enough on breathing. Let's start talking about belting! Part II When it comes to belting, the number one thing that will hold you back is fear. In the words of FDR: "We have nothing to fear in belting, but fear itself." Except he didn't say "in belting," but I'm pretty sure that's what he was talking about. Fear of what? Letting go. Cracking. Hitting the note. Releasing the sound. Hurting yourself. And, ironically, this fear – which causes constricting, and tensing – will be what ultimately makes it difficult (nay, impossible!) to belt. (And because the perception of your sound is equally crucial, it's also important to sing in a place where you feel comfortable, and it’s a bonus if it has good acoustics. So if you're used to practicing in an acoustically dead room where you voice seems to evaporate the second it leaves your mouth, this will most likely contribute to your straining to hear yourself or produce a fuller sound. Try to go where there's a bit of reverb, or where you can hear yourself clearly. Believe me, it really, really helps.) We defined singing previously, so let’s now define belting. Belting is when a man or woman takes his or her chest voice sound and brings it into a head or more falsetto range. So, in other words, when the conventional speaking tone is applied to higher pitches -- those for which you might typically use a head (or soprano/falsetto) tone.

It’s that powerful, edgy, hefty sound we were talking about earlier. And it’s really fun to do! Breathing while Belting Even though you need to use a lot of breath to load up your lungs for those long held notes, while belting you are actually applying a thinner, more focused "string" of air through your cords than

you think. A lot of people falsely believe that the "bigger sound" you can create through belting means engaging more of your cords and, in a lot of cases, bringing your larynx high up in your throat (a somewhat advanced concept, which we'll touch on briefly), but what allows you to get up there is not by muscling or forcing or dragging your way up to the higher notes, but by being way more deliberate, focused, and relaxed. Crazy, no? The key to breathing while belting is to load up on a sufficient amount of air (usually more than you think) and work on compressing that air with your diaphragm to create a super focused, strong, controlled (i.e. consistent) laser pointer of breath, which translates into laser-pointer sound, which allows you to "float" notes in a chestier-sounding register, which ends up being belting. Now, it's important that you don't tense your stomach muscles unnecessarily. You want to apply pressure underneath your ribcage, but you don't want to feel like you're going to die. In the earlier phases of learning the sensation of diaphragm breathing, you might squeeze your belly more than is ultimately necessary -- so please bear in mind that what is most important is the act of compression, not that you tense all your muscles (tension, in nearly all cases, while singing, is not good). A firm, steady, strong compression helps to funnel the air from your diaphragm-balloon upward and support the sound, but it shouldn’t leave you feeling tense. Jaw while Belting So what happens to your jaw? Basically, the bigger the space, the better! Meaning, you gotta open that MOUTH! I have a pretty small mouth, so this part of belting has always been challenging for me. In terms of specific prompts, work on "unhinging" your jaw, or letting it drop downward to create space. For some, the image "like you're biting into an apple" helps communicate the desired position. Another prompt it that you're creating a "C" shape with your jaw, which also means creating a space in the back of your throat (remember that feeling of a yawn we talked about, with your tongue down and your soft palate raised?). So, yes: you must create space. Space, space, space. Practice making space. If you have jaw tension, massage your jaw before your singing warmups. Even better, practice Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) Tapping -- an extraordinary method for releasing tension from your body -- and focus on freeing up your jaw and face. (This EFT Tapping technique is far too extensive to deconstruct in this book, but I highly recommend it, not just for singers, but for all people of the earth. Check out The Tapping Solution by Nick Ortner; it's one of the most important books I've ever read in my life, helping to create stress-free living and stress-free singing.) Resonance while Belting While belting, it's very important for you to imagine that you're not creating a ton of forceful sound from your cords, but rather for that you're making that laser beam of sound and placing the sound's resonance in very deliberate ways. You want your sound, ideally, to resonate on your face and behind your nose in a space called the mask. It is important to guide (or "aim") the resonance forward, but not so forward that it become nasal, or so that you "knock" the sound out of commission and deny it its full resonance in the back of your pharynx. (Your pharynx is the cavity behind your nose and mouth that has a bunch of membranes and connects the mask section of your face to your esophagus. I know: yummy.)

Sometimes it's helpful to think of the sound as spinning, and in so spinning, touching the back of your throat, and moving "through" your head until it slices, boomerang-style, your nasal cavities, mustache area, and sides of your cheeks. In order to capture this feeling, it's helpful to try to subtly smile -- not just externally so people are like "oh, what a happy singer" but internally -- smiling inward. The subtle lift you get from smiling inward helps you to place your sound in the mask. Practice this while looking in the mirror -- and remember to keep that jaw lowered and "unhinged." You might look creepy at first, smiling at yourself in a mirror, but who even cares? To memorize this sensation and help channel the sound forward, we work with vowels that are "nasty." Vowels like /nah/, but said in a voice that sounds like Fran Drescher from The Nanny. It's also helpful to add a "gn" to the beginning of it -- as in the word "gnocchi,” the pasta -- which helps to spin the sound into the mask. It's also helpful to perform warmups that use the /aa/ vowel, as in "apple" or the second /aa/ in "banana." What we're trying to reinforce here is a vowel that will encourage, as oppose to discourage, a more forward, masky, somewhat "nasty" sound. It's okay to get nastier in warmups than you eventually will in performance. The purpose is not to try to create a performance-ready sound right off the bat, but to take this resonance technique to a sort of extreme place, so that you can memorize the sensation before dialing it back into a more "normal" or balanced sound. Larynx while Belting As I said, it’s important to maintain a neutral larynx while you’re popping out high notes in a chesty voice. One way to “massage” your larynx and get it to relax while singing is doing something called vocal fry. Vocal fry can be performed on an exhale, or inhale, and on a voiced pitch. It’s difficult to demonstrate this technique via e-book, but I talk about this strategy in my complete belting course. If you’re curious to hear what a vocal fry sounds like, you can Google search it or look it up on YouTube.

Posture while Belting Posture for good belting is no different from posture for good general singing, but it bears repeating. As a review, you want to keep your rib cage and upper torso high and upright and not collapse or compromise this position (which is why it’s so important that you master diaphragmatic breathing). You want to keep breathing low, and beneath this upright section of your body, inflating your diaphragm balloon beneath this stable cage without compromising it. Back is upright, lengthened and widened, as the back of the neck is long and free. As I said, try to give yourself a double chin, a process I know well, coming from a long line of robust and sanguine Italians. This posture is always crucial, but it becomes even more crucial as the notes you sing become higher. Again, make sure your head is not thrust forward as this will compromise the straightness and integrity of the “elevator shaft” that produces sound through your larynx and pharynx. Make sure your butt and hips are not too tucked under or too far extended back, as neither is good. Also, I like to encourage singers to clench their butts. Not too much. But enough to keep

you grounded and also to help activate your diaphragm. Thrusting your focus down, to your butt, also helps to keep you from tensing and thinking "Oh God! This note is so high!" Now, We Practice! It's somewhat difficult to convey vocal warmups via e-book. However I'm going to take you through the basic structure of an effective warmup and suggest some ways to mix it up in order to access your belt. 1) Start with breath. Remember our breath activation discussion? Humming or lip trills are a great way to warm up the breath and diaphragm without using too much sound or engaging too much of your vocal folds. And it's always great to start small. There are lots of ways to work on breath, many of which I touch upon in my video series, but you can begin with basics and see a marked improvement in just a few days' time. 2) Next, try a warm-up that brings you from a hum into an easy, open vowel, like /ah/. There are a variety of ways to do this (as detailed in my course) but the key here is progression. We're taking a smaller sound and slowly opening it up, all while supported by the right amount of breath. 3) Think of warming up as stretching before a workout, with the stretches getting a bit deeper and more comprehensive the longer you go about it. Start to expand the range of notes you're working on. Don't go crazy -- but if you started mid range, try an exercise on a simple /ah/ that takes you into your head voice or, conversely, takes you down into your chest. (Don't strain, just get things warmed up!) 4) Try to navigate your passaggio, or vocal break. This is the tricky no-man's-land where chest voice becomes head voice and tons of singers experience a crack, or break, or a weakness in the chain of their voice. Fear not: this is normal. The way to combat this is not to strain here or push the sound, but to compress and use your breath in that focused, laser way we were talking about, and to imagine your cords getting smaller the higher you get. (Passaggio is a beastly topic that, again, can't be covered satisfactorily in this e-book, but it does have a lot to do with belting, and particularly the process of achieving a vocal mix or blend. Check out my e-course for more ways to navigate this difficult region.) 5) Ready to belt during your warmup? Great! It's important to find a vowel that lets you create the kind of palate and mask shape we were talking about -- encouraging your sound to resonate toward your face. Again, I like to choose words that incorporate the somewhat nasal, annoying /aa/ or /nah/ or /gnah/ sound -- like you're teasing a kid in a playground. "Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, you can't get me!" Sustain this /nah/ vowel and carry it through a simple run, like a scale. 6) The more confident you feel creating this kind of /nah/ or /gnah/ vowel, the easier time you'll have applying this focused, controlled technique to higher and higher notes. Hence, belting! And that, my friends, is the basic progression of a warmup. Once you get to numbers 4 and 5, it's important to expand your warmup repertoire and to consult my video guide to give you specifics about what exactly you should be doing. But this is the basic approach to warming up before belting. Finally, here's a secret from me to you: in order to be a successful belter, all you need to do is master belting one vowel. Find your best vowel. For me it's something like /nah/ with a bit more of an open /ah/. Once you know what it is, later -- through "singer voodoo," so to speak, you can

modify and alter lyrics and words to let you play up your strengths and employ this vowel, or some variation of it, in all cases. Of course, the more versatile you are, the better. But what I'm saying is: as long as you have these basic tools in your tool kit, you're going to be belting like a Broadway star in no time. Now, we belt! If you like my teaching style, or merely tolerate it, and/or found this e-book helpful, please consider visiting my website www.FeliciaRicci.com for a wildly fun ride through the world of belting and singing. I promise we'll have fun and you'll experience incredible improvement. Thanks for reading, folks! Now go belt your face off! THE END.