title: Respiratory and Acoustical Differences Between Belt and Neutral Style of Singing.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Belt is a style of singing commonly used in nonclassical genres. Its respiratory, phonatory, and resonatory characteristics are unclear.
  
  
  METHODS
  Basic research.
  
  
  METHODS
  Six female singers, professionally performing in the belt styles since many years, sang an excerpt of a song in belt and nonbelt/neutral style, two times with the lyrics and two times replacing the lyrics with /pae/ syllables. On separate channels, recordings were made of audio, oral pressure, and rib cage and abdominal wall movements, as picked up by respiratory inductive plethysmography. Lung volume and breathing patterns during inhalation and phonation were normalized with respect to duration and averaged. Voice source was analyzed in terms of flow glottograms derived from the audio signal by inverse filtering.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Belt was produced with higher pressures and yielded higher sound levels, but no consistent breathing pattern was observed, neither for the belt, nor for the neutral style. Voice source differences suggested that belt was produced with firmer glottal adduction than neutral. Also, in four of the singers, the first formant was closer to a spectrum harmonic in belt than in neutral.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Belt style of singing is not associated with a characteristic breathing behavior but is produced with higher subglottal pressures, higher sound levels, and firmer glottal adduction than a neutral style of singing.
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech Music Hearing, School of Computer Science and Communication, KTH, Stockholm, Sweden; SMI (University College of Music Education), Stockholm, Sweden. Electronic address: pjohan@speech.kth.se.
authors.forename: Johan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sundberg
authors.affiliation: SMI (University College of Music Education), Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Margareta
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Thalén
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005931:Glottis / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D063346:Singing; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Breathing pattern; Formant frequency; Respiratory inductive Plethysmography; Subglottal pressure; Voice source