Vocal Warm Up Exercises
Similar with athletes who need to perform warm ups before participating in any sort of sport, singers also need to ready their voices before any rehearsal or performance. By doing vocal warm up exercises, it relaxes your muscles and gets air flowing so that your vocal cords are ready for more demanding activities to come. Warm ups are possibly the best way to avoid vocal fatigue and damage from overuse.
Many will find the concept of doing warm ups counter intuitive. After all, essentially you are doing more exercises to prevent injury from overuse. However, it is proven that doing light exercises for the tiny muscles that control your vocal folds make them more flexible and easy to use. As a result, your vocal muscles are less prone to injury.
Relaxing Your Whole Body
Before you begin your singing warm up exercises, you will need to stretch your entire body and try as much as possible to relax yourself. Start by doing the “rag doll” exercise. Bend forward at your hips from a standing position and allow your head and arms to dangle freely. Loosen them a bit by giving them a little shake and let them dangle for another minute or so.
After that, continue with a stretching exercise to ensure proper posture alignment. Take a standing position with your feet about a hip-width apart with your arms by your sides. Then as you take a deep breath, raise your arms from the side till they come together at the top of your head. As you do this, rise onto your tiptoes and hold that position for a few seconds.
While you slowly exhale, bring your arms back down to you sides and come back to your original position with your feet flat on the ground. As you do this exercise, try to have your chest up and shoulders back, as you raise your arms up and down. After you have repeated this exercise for a few times, you are then ready for your
Singing Warm Up Exercises
The first warm up exercises is a vocal technique that is known by many names: buzz, lip thrill, bubble lips, or lip roll. The main idea is to exhale through puckered lips and create a vibration that sounds a bit a motorbike or motorboat.
Do this exercise in three different tones: start with the base tone, then go up a fourth and then back to the base tone. So for example, in the key of C it would be the note C, F, C. Repeat this while going up half a tone each time you repeat (C#, F#, C#, then D,G,D, then Eb, Ab, Eb, etc.). You could do this exercise using the syllable “oo” or “ee”, however the buzzing helps to develop better breath support.
Doing this exercise usually result in an itchy nose but most people get used to that after a while. Some find putting a finger at the top of your upper lip helps to reduce the itchiness because it stops the vibration from reaching the nose. However, doing this may also make it harder to perform this exercise. The decision is entirely up to you.
The next exercise is called the fifth slide. Start on the fifth tone with the syllable “wee” and slide down towards the base tone. For example, in the key of C, you would start with G then slide down to C. To add variety, you can repeat the exercise with the syllable “zoo” all the while increasing moving up half a tone till you can’t go any higher.
Next is a five tone descending scale. Again starting on the fifth tone, go down in steps towards the base tone. Alternate between the syllables “na”, “nay”, “noh” and “noo” while moving up half a tone each time you repeat till you can’t go any higher.
The fourth exercise is an extension of the previous exercise whereby you increase the number of tones you descend to eight. You can try other vowels sounds like the previous exercise as you go higher in tone. You can also replace the initial consonant from “n” to “m” or any other consonant for variety.
After that exercise, do a descending arpeggio (do, so, mi, do) on the syllable “nah”. Repeat that with other vowels then move up by half tones and repeat on each syllable once again.
The last vocal warm up exercise is called the octave slide. Using the buzz learned in the first exercise, start on the base note and slide up and octave before sliding back down to the base note. Repeat this with different vowels move up by half a tone as you do so.
There are many other types of warm up exercises you can do. However the five listed here should be more than sufficient to give your vocal muscles a good stretch before any heavy singing and reduce the chances of overuse damage.
Similar with athletes who need to perform warm ups before participating in any sort of sport, singers also need to ready their voices before any rehearsal or performance. By doing vocal warm up exercises, it relaxes your muscles and gets air flowing so that your vocal cords are ready for more demanding activities to come. Warm ups are possibly the best way to avoid vocal fatigue and damage from overuse.
Many will find the concept of doing warm ups counter intuitive. After all, essentially you are doing more exercises to prevent injury from overuse. However, it is proven that doing light exercises for the tiny muscles that control your vocal folds make them more flexible and easy to use. As a result, your vocal muscles are less prone to injury.
Relaxing Your Whole Body
Before you begin your singing warm up exercises, you will need to stretch your entire body and try as much as possible to relax yourself. Start by doing the “rag doll” exercise. Bend forward at your hips from a standing position and allow your head and arms to dangle freely. Loosen them a bit by giving them a little shake and let them dangle for another minute or so.
After that, continue with a stretching exercise to ensure proper posture alignment. Take a standing position with your feet about a hip-width apart with your arms by your sides. Then as you take a deep breath, raise your arms from the side till they come together at the top of your head. As you do this, rise onto your tiptoes and hold that position for a few seconds.
While you slowly exhale, bring your arms back down to you sides and come back to your original position with your feet flat on the ground. As you do this exercise, try to have your chest up and shoulders back, as you raise your arms up and down. After you have repeated this exercise for a few times, you are then ready for your
Singing Warm Up Exercises
The first warm up exercises is a vocal technique that is known by many names: buzz, lip thrill, bubble lips, or lip roll. The main idea is to exhale through puckered lips and create a vibration that sounds a bit a motorbike or motorboat.
Do this exercise in three different tones: start with the base tone, then go up a fourth and then back to the base tone. So for example, in the key of C it would be the note C, F, C. Repeat this while going up half a tone each time you repeat (C#, F#, C#, then D,G,D, then Eb, Ab, Eb, etc.). You could do this exercise using the syllable “oo” or “ee”, however the buzzing helps to develop better breath support.
Doing this exercise usually result in an itchy nose but most people get used to that after a while. Some find putting a finger at the top of your upper lip helps to reduce the itchiness because it stops the vibration from reaching the nose. However, doing this may also make it harder to perform this exercise. The decision is entirely up to you.
The next exercise is called the fifth slide. Start on the fifth tone with the syllable “wee” and slide down towards the base tone. For example, in the key of C, you would start with G then slide down to C. To add variety, you can repeat the exercise with the syllable “zoo” all the while increasing moving up half a tone till you can’t go any higher.
Next is a five tone descending scale. Again starting on the fifth tone, go down in steps towards the base tone. Alternate between the syllables “na”, “nay”, “noh” and “noo” while moving up half a tone each time you repeat till you can’t go any higher.
The fourth exercise is an extension of the previous exercise whereby you increase the number of tones you descend to eight. You can try other vowels sounds like the previous exercise as you go higher in tone. You can also replace the initial consonant from “n” to “m” or any other consonant for variety.
After that exercise, do a descending arpeggio (do, so, mi, do) on the syllable “nah”. Repeat that with other vowels then move up by half tones and repeat on each syllable once again.
The last vocal warm up exercise is called the octave slide. Using the buzz learned in the first exercise, start on the base note and slide up and octave before sliding back down to the base note. Repeat this with different vowels move up by half a tone as you do so.
There are many other types of warm up exercises you can do. However the five listed here should be more than sufficient to give your vocal muscles a good stretch before any heavy singing and reduce the chances of overuse damage.