Vibrato, Breathiness and Belting

Sources: www.singinglessonsguildford.com Belting: 2 tips to massively extend your chest voice range
Belting is high intensity, loud singing. Essentially, belting is yelling in a controlled manner, with a few other things thrown in to make sure you are doing it safely and healthily. The belt usually comes (if the composer is sensitive and intelligent) at emotionally climactic moments within a song or a show. These can be moments of pain, anguish, joy, pleasure, ecstasy, or when a character is desperate to be heard, seen or noticed. The lyric/s that a belt is used on is usually carefully considered. Belting is always a loud, thick, exciting sound and is usually characterized by straight tone leading into vibrato at the most pleasing moment in the harmonic progression to release the built tension.
Tip One: Tilt the Cricoid Cartilage
The larynx is composed of two main pieces of cartilage: the Adams apple (thyroid cartilage) and a band of cartilage which forms the top of the trachea and the base of the larynx – the cricoid cartilage. By activating what’s called a cricoid tilt, we can adjust the position of the cricoid to shorten the vocal folds. So how to get this working:
There are two lumps on your larynx. The top lump is your thyroid cartilage and the bottom lump is your cricoid cartilage. For boys, the top lump will usually be much larger than the bottom. Girls may find this more difficult, and the cricoid cartilage may actually be bigger than the thyroid.
Keep a finger on the cricoid cartilage, and make a high-pitched ‘yay’ sound like a kid’s TV presenter. You should feel the whole body of the larynx move upwards and the cricoid cartilage fold inwards into your neck.
You’ll feel that this produces a high-pitched, almost cartoonish sound – try a few more yay’s, putting in some more power and going higher. Try some lines from a song using this voice – you’ll find that the higher notes come far easier, and that the whole thing carries further and requires less effort.

Tip Two: Raise Your Tongue, Drop Your Jaw
Watch David’s mouth, especially on the big C# at 4:00. Check out how dropped the jaw is. It’s a big mouth he’s showing off here, and that openness means that more sound gets reflected out of the mouth instead of being lost in the soft tissue of the cheeks and lips – meaning a louder sound without any more effort. Drop the jaw on the higher belts (even on the ‘or’ and ‘oo’ vowels!) and feel the notes get easier.
Secondly, check out the tongue position. It’s pushing up in the back of the mouth and sloping down to touch the front teeth. Having the tongue in this position raises it out of the way of the epiglottis (allowing good twang) as well as complimenting the complicated effect I hinted at above.
So – tilt the cricoid, raise your tongue, and drop your jaw.

http://www.voicestudiolondon.com/blog/2015/1/3/3-tips-for-better-belting
Breathiness: how to control it and when to use it
When a voice sounds breathy, it’s because the vocal cords aren’t coming together all the way when you’re creating sound. The added space between the cords is where the breath escapes, creating a breathy tone.
The thing about this pervasive breathiness is that it kills resonance. The higher harmonics (twang!) that come from a full tone are the ‘sit-up-and-listen’ harmonics – they command attention by their loudness and strength. You’d never a professional singer belt a high note with a breathy tone – they know that note represents a high emotional moment in the song, and that they need to hit the high harmonics in order to do it justice.
Sometimes breathiness in singers is ok , So let’s show you how to control it.
The breathiness is decided by the vibratory setting of the true vocal folds. When the sound is breathy, they’re in what’s called a ‘stiff folds’ setting. This is where the vocal folds leap apart and stiffen, allowing air to pass through. We want to bring those vocal folds together to provide a good ‘vocal closure’.
Technique
To locate the vocal folds internally, do this sound “ huh huhuhuhuh “ . The feeling of popping you get in your larynx is where your vocal folds are.
Nyah nyah nyah … meaow … wowawowoh …
Integrate these twangy sounds into your singing. Try singing your favorite song on a ‘nyeh’ sound, in the voice of a cat, or played with a muted trumpet. Slowly integrate the words into the song and get used to this way of singing.
Learning this control is one of the crucial hurdles to pass through for the beginner singer.
Vibrato
It’s the be-all-and-end-all of classy singing. Absolutely necessary in opera and musical theatre, found throughout most of the Crosby/Sinatra crooner era, and even seeping its way into soul and R&B. Vibrato Definition : That little wiggle on the end of the notes holds so much power and significance in Western music it’s hard to over-state. A good vibrato is a fluctuation in pitch about a quarter-to-half-step downwards from the note itself. There’s something about the quality of that sound which we have been culturally conditioned to like, so a good vibrato appeals greatly to a listening audience.
How to acquire and control it :
1: Relax, relax, relax.
Relaxation is the key here. Vibrato comes when a voice is at its most chilled out – any tension in the parts which produce it will mean that you have to force it, which produces a tense wiggle rather than a smooth glide.
Check the six-pack muscles to see if you’re tensing too hard. The muscles closest to the ribs should feel like unset jelly when aiming for vibrato.
Check for tension in the jaw or tongue by wiggling them while you sing.
Finally, go on a clean tone – breathiness at this stage will inhibit the sound.
2: Tilt the Thyroid Cartilage
There are various schools of thought as to what actually produces vibrato, but my favourite comes from the Estill model. The vocal folds are strung between the cricoid cartilage and the thyroid cartilage. Vibrato is produced by a small muscle on the side of the thyroid which contracts and relaxes, slacking and tensing the vocal folds so that they create the wiggly pitch of vibrato.
To increase this effect, you can tilt the thyroid cartilage forward to further increase the vocal folds’ length.
Put a finger on your larynx. You should feel two lumps. The adam’s apple is the thyroid cartilage, and the lump below it is the cricoid cartilage.
Find the groove between them – a little valley between the two lumps.
Make a ‘whimpering puppy’ sound, or a sobbing sound. You should feel the thyroid push downwards and outwards and the tone significantly darken. Try a few notes in this mode, using a ‘wah’ sound.
You should feel that if your vibrato was just wavering before, the thyroid tilt helps to bring it out much more solidly. Use degrees of this as a primer to engage your vibrato.
3: Beware the fake ‘bleating’ vibrato
There is a style of vibrato which fools you into thinking that you’re doing the real thing. It’s significantly quicker, thinner, and much easier. It involves a fluctuation in the breath rather than a fluctuation in the pitch, and is not related to the real thing. Hear a demonstration below.