Singing is a physical activity, we cannot see the muscle movement because it happens inside our bodies. Many singers feel like they have ran a marathon after singing for a couple of hours. We sweat and we also get tired even if we don't move around the stage.
When we sing certain muscles activate, these muscle movements combined with air flow create the voice's sound. Because voice is created with muscle movement we need to warm up those muscles to prepare them for the activity they are going to do. Singing!
There are a specific series of vocal routines to warm up your voice and prepare you to sing without major trouble. Warming ups are important to create flexibility, elasticity and stronger and more durable vocal chords that will last for many years if you learn to sing properly.
There are a bunch of warming up vocalizations. I recommend 5 vocal routines that are easy to do and will help you to get ready to sing without major complications. Here they are:
1. A. The lip trill: (Just air)
This is a very useful exercise to star warming up the muscles on your face. You just need to put your lips together and blow air softly between them.
B. The lip trill: (With sound)
After you do 3 or 4 lip trills without any sound, you can softly add sound to your lip trill. The vowel used on this vocalization can be an OH or AH sound. You should try both vowels and see which one is best for you. You can go up and down softly trying to create the sound of a siren. You should NEVER scream or force your voice during the warming up time. Well, in fact, you should never force your voice at all!
2. Panting and yawning exercise:
Panting is an excellent exercise to wake up your diaphragm and activate the muscles on your stomach area. When these muscles work properly they support the current of air that pass through your vocal chords helping the voice to go directly to your resonance areas, the cavities on your head, nose, eyes and mouth. The yawning helps the voice to find the highest vocal placement possible by lifting the soft palate, helping the sound to go to the nose cavities, avoiding staying trapped in the larynx. This will also help to have a stable larynx while singing. Do this exercise by panting slowly and softly at the time you yawn with an AH sound. Do a siren sound from a comfortable note for you and go all the way down slowly creating a glissando between the highest and lowest notes you can sing comfortably. Make sure the muscles on your stomach go in, helping your diaphragm to support the air current until the end of the exercise. Repeat it at least 4 or 5 time going higher each time. Do not force your voice.
3. Panting yawning and vocal fry: Vocal fry does wonders on voices that sound fatigued, whispering and have air escape. These things happen when the vocal folds are not getting together completely and there is not a 100% closure between them. Vocal fry makes the vocal chords stronger but without making them hard or taking away the flexibility and the soft nature they have. Additionally, vocal fry helps the vocal chords to get together completely without forcing them at all, making their closure easier and more efficient. This exercise is performed exactly the same as the panting and yawning exercise but adding the vocal fry at the end of the glissando.
4. The M and sound:
A. The M sound is fantastic to find high voice placement and warming up the vocal chords slowly. When shaping your lips for the M, make sure that you separate the lower yaw from the higher yaw but keep the lips together. Behind that M sound you should sing and AH sound like you are yawning. Remember that yawning or keeping the yawning sensation while warming up is very important to develop good vocal habits.
5. The Pharyngeal sound:
This exercise is especially designed to work with the Pharynx. The pharynx plays an important role in the singing process. The pharyngeal sound helps the singer to develop those high notes with less effort and more power. It also helps with creating an equal sound from top to bottom without any breaks in between. At the beginning the pharyngeal sound is a little bit hard to find, the singer must feel vibrations in the nasal cavities and at the same time the singer will feel the voice going up to the head passing through the back of the neck, behind the ears and finally getting right behind the nose. To do this vocalization the singer should stick the tongue out and make it vibrate very delicately and slowly. The sound behind the vibrating tongue should be an AH or OH in a yawning sensation. The upper teeth and lip should not pinched or stressed the tongue in any way, if they do, the tongue will not vibrate. Do sirens going up and down, make sure the larynx don't move while singing this vocalization. Repeat this exercise 4 or 5 times.
I hope this simple vocalizations can help you to warm up quickly and efficiently. Happy singing!
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Start Singing Now - theonlinevoicestudio is an online business that offers voice lessons and vocal coaching on live video conferences on Skype. We work with classical and pop singers and train them into a healthy way of singing. We retrain the vocal mechanism to make it work efficiently, giving the singer a way to sing effortlessly, with power, flexibility and beauty. This is only achieved when the singer finds a perfect balance between the muscle movement and the flow of air, allowing the vocal mechanism to work with the less amount of tension possible. The singer will find that perfect balance by learning to use the voice correctly, relaxing the muscles in the right places, allowing the flow of air to go directly to the resonance areas. Singing this way, singers will develop the volume, stamina, flexibility, beauty, strength and endurance they all need to sing for long periods of time without causing vocal damage and keeping the voice healthy for years to come.
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