Vocal warmups can come in the form of breathing or vocal exercises to prepare your voice before performing a song. Warm ups take more than just opening your mouth to sing, but they engage your larynx and vocal chords. Just like with any physical activity or sport, it is important to perform light activity of the muscles you will be using for a game or practice. Keep your muscles in shape by practicing healthily, then they will become stronger and you can sing with confidence! We would not want you to strain your vocal chords with improper use.
Like any skill, practice will make you better! So, the more often you are practicing warm-ups and techniques it will help you build the skills you want. The techniques that singers work towards are vowel shape, singing vowels correctly and clearly at different pitches, connecting chest and head-voice, and transitioning through them. Singing engages your breath so breathing exercises will strengthen the skill of carrying your voice through long phrases. Another body part that singers train, though not physically, is their ears. They train their ears with ear training: to listen to fluctuations in tones, scales intervals, and recognizing when they are off pitch. The more you sing, the more in-tune you become with your voice and where your comfort zone is. So, keep singing!
If you are stuck on what warm-ups to do, here are a few breathing and vocal exercises that can help you grow on your vocal journey:
Breathing Exercises
One vocal exercise that you can practice is by hissing through your teeth, while timing your breath going in and out of your lungs. For example, depending on a students’ abilities you can breathe in for 4 beats (whatever tempo the instructor chooses, usually 1-2bpm) and exhale on a hiss for 8 seconds. Then, you can increase the seconds a student breathes in and out based on their skill level with the exercise (breath support).
Another exercise that your vocal instructor could have you practice may seems a little silly- you lay on the floor on your back while singing. This position forces you to use your diaphragm when you breathe. When breathing in, your stomach should expand and you can place your hands on your stomach for this exercise to feel it contract/expand.
Vocal Exercises
A vocal exercise that singers will use to warm-up are lip trills. Lip trills are simple and silly looking- you breathe between your lips and let them vibrate. Make sure to relax your lips as you are breathing out. To add another element of difficulty, you can add a pitch while doing lip trills like you are singing. Relaxing your lips while doing lip trills will help with clearer diction and vowel sounds, take pressure off vocal chords, and warm up your diaphragm.
You can also sing arpeggios to help you warmup your vocal chords and ears! Speeding up the tempo when performing an arpeggio can increase the exercise’s difficulty because it will be harder to hit the center of each note. When singing this exercise, focus on hitting each note before moving to the next. You can sing them on any syllable.
Here at the JESM, we have exceptional instructors that work with our students to help them grow musically. Please call or email us to come in for a trial lesson with one of our amazing voice teachers.
~Jerry Evans School of Music
