How to Warm Up Your Voice for Singing
To sound your very best, warming your voice before every performance is essential. In addition to singing scales and doing vocal exercises, it's also important to use relaxation techniques. This helps to avoid strain in the head, shoulders, face and neck muscles required for singing, and possible damage to the voice.
Set aside at least 15 minutes a day for your vocal warm-ups, preferably about a half-hour before going onstage. You'll feel more relaxed and confident when you go on, ready to hit those high notes on the first song.
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
Relaxation Exercises
-
1
Stand straight with your feet slightly apart, then slowly let your head drop straight down until your chin is almost resting on your chest. Hold this position for five seconds; you will feel the muscles in the back of your neck stretching out.
-
2
Perform 4 to 8 slow neck rolls. Move first to the left, then hold for five seconds. Then roll your neck all the way to the right and hold for five seconds. When you're done, slowly roll your head back to the center position and lift your chin up.
-
-
3
Do several "fake yawns" to relax mouth and throat muscles. Just open your mouth as wide as you can and pretend you are yawning. Do this slowly and hold your mouth open for about five seconds before closing it again. This often turns into a real yawn after you have done it a few times. That's fine too -- let it happen.
Breathing Exercises
-
4
Assume a normal standing position and place your hand flat on your stomach just underneath your belly button.
-
5
Take a deep breath, filling your lungs to capacity. You should be able to feel your diaphragm expanding underneath your hand. If you can't see your stomach "pooching out" a bit, you're not doing the exercise correctly. The goal is to train your breathing to come from the diaphragm, not from your chest. Hold your breath for 10 seconds, or for as long as you possibly can.
-
6
Let the breath out slowly, audibly blowing the air out through pursed lips. Keep your palm on your belly area and you'll feel the diaphragm collapse like a balloon as you exhale.
-
7
Repeat this exercise 5 to 10 times before a performance. This is will increase your vocal control and help you be able to hold notes longer without running out of air.
Vocal Exercises
-
8
Close your lips loosely and move air through them, sounding like a motorboat sound: "b-b-b-b-b-b." This is called a "lip roll" or "lip trill." You may experience a tingling sensation in your lips because you're pushing a lot of air rapidly through them. This relaxes the lip, mouth and jaw muscles in your face and opens the back of your throat.
-
9
Sing a musical scale from bottom to top, using the same lip trill technique described in step 1. Don't close your lips too tightly while doing this; cinching them tenses your facial muscles when the goal is to relax them. Do this five times.
It's recommended that you sing along with an instrument or vocal warm-up CD to help guide you and keep your voice on pitch.
-
10
Repeat Step 2, only this time sing from high to low. Start at the top of your range and keep doing the scale downwards until you have reached the lowest note you can possibly sing. Again, repeat this exercise five times.
By the time you have completed these three exercises -- relaxation, breathing, and vocal -- your voice will be all warmed up. You should really feel and hear a difference when you go onstage.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
Doing the same exercises all the time can get stale. To keep yourself challenged and prevent boredom, buy vocal warm-up CDs with a variety of exercises and switch your warm-up routine frequently.
Find a private area to do your warm-ups. Some of the strange sounds you'll be making might result in laughter if others are within earshot.
Never do vocal warm-ups sitting down; the sitting position crushes your diaphragm. It is recommended that you don't sit down at all when you sing. Always stand up.
Failing to warm your voice before each and every performance may have devastating consequences for a singer. When you're not warmed up and pushing air improperly, you could cause permanent damage to your throat and/or develop nodes on the vocal folds, which often require surgical removal. Remember, one serious vocal injury could end your singing career.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Jupiterimages/Goodshoot/Getty Images
