Whether you are a professional singer or a beginner student taking Atlanta voice lessons, vocal warm up exercises should become a part of your daily singing regimen. There are many benefits associated with warm up exercises and most singers and voice instructors will vouch that a warm up session helps alleviate muscle tension and improves voice strength and quality. A good warm up should last about 20 minutes and should proceed after drinking lots of fluids to help moisturize the vocal chords.
Vocal warm up exercises help increase the blood flow to the voice producing muscles. Starting with relaxation exercises is great to make sure that your body is ready to start your in home voice lessons. After relaxing, start with some breathing exercises, vocal strength improvement exercises and pitch exercises. Eventually you will settle into your own routine that will suite your needs.
As a beginner vocalist, it is important that your warm ups are planned out with a teacher. There isn’t a set warm up that works for everyone, so it will be very beneficial to have one tailor made with someone who knows your strengths and weaknesses as a singer.
Some common exercises include:
- Yawning sighing: Inhale slowly on a yawn keeping your jaw, tongue and shoulders relaxed and exhale out vocally (sing a pitch)
- Using the hmmm: Use the hmm sound at a comfortable pitch and change the sound halfway through the exhaled breath
- Using a straw: Inhale through a yawn but when exhaling use a straw
- Sharp exhalation: breathe in slowly and deeply but when exhaling contract the abdominal muscles sharply to expel the air out on the sound of ‘huh’.
- Vowel sounds: Use different vowel sounds alone of coupled with consonant sounds and sing them across the scale starting low and ending high.
- Tongue Twisters: Another way is to use a common tongue twister like ‘she sells sea shells on the sea shore’. The goal while performing this exercise should be to avoid tension in the articulators (tongue, palate, lip and throat). You can try this with different pitch levels. Here is a funny video to get an idea of what to work towards. This youtube channel has many more that you can work with!
Benefits of these warm ups include:
- Increase in stamina
- Increase in Vocal Range
- Mental and physical conditioning
- Better voice control
- Promotes correct breathing
- Avoids damage to articulators
- Increases vocal strength
