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9 Of The Best Ways To Warm Up Your Voice

Posted on 03.10.18

We all know that warming the voice up is essential in order to get the best possible result out of it. When we attend a live show, or we hear our favourite artist sing in a live lounge style session on the radio, we take for granted how much preparation may have gone into that vocal performance. Sure, there’s always the odd singer (typically the more experienced performer) who will require little to no warm up time, but often it is extremely rare that any singer doesn’t need to warm up.

There are also many factors to consider when preparing the voice for performance or recording. What is the temperature like in the room? What other conditions within the given singing environment may affect or inhibit the voice? How are you physically, in yourself? What is required of you, delivery wise? How are you mentally managing your emotions or thoughts before a challenging or demanding performance?

A warm up is not just used to get ready for a performance, though, it can also help to develop range, enrich tone and strengthen muscles. Knowing how essential warming up the voice is, we’re going to list nine of the best ways to warm up the voice, some will also give it a good work out at the same time.

1. Breathing exercises

Granted, sounds obvious. But you’d be surprised at how few people come into a session without a complete understanding of how to breathe when singing. So let’s get this straightened out. Breath is the fuel that powers our voices and without it we would grind to a silent halt. The lungs are the engine, so, we want to work on expanding the size of that engine to increase the power. A good way to do this is to count and breathe in on 10 and then out again on 10 - steadily increasing your count until you are filling and emptying the lungs to capacity. Over time, as the muscles strengthen, the breath capacity and breath control will increase and improve.

2. Stay nourished

While your breath fuels your voice, food fuels the breath. So, make sure you eat 30 minutes before a performance, try, though, to eat something that works with your body. It goes without saying but you want to avoid things like trapped wind, hiccups or acid reflux! We would suggest porridge with fruit and nuts, pasta or rice with vegetables… anything that you might eat before a good physical workout. 

3. Get warm

Nobody really feels like singing when they’re very cold! So, keeping your voice warm is important because it allows for more accuracy and control and enjoyment when you use it. You can try scarves and extra layers to keep the larynx and the body warm and humming gently and quietly is a good place to begin a warm up if you are starting from cold. Also, warm honey and lemon will help. Remember, honey and lemon are both soothing and they’ll help to warm up the voice before your performance. You can also try a quick physical warm up to help get the body to a comfortable temperature before you begin. This could include jogging on the spot or some flowing yoga stretches.

4. Activate the articulators

If the vowels are the boats to emotion then we need to make sure they don’t sink by building them strong and water tight. The teeth, tongue, palate and lips are the tools and materials you are using to build these boats. We are looking for precision and accuracy. Tongue twisters are a great way to activate the articulators and are one of the best ways of warming them up and working them out. A singing teacher can help you to identify tongue twisters that work your weakest areas of articulation, so you can go home and practise.

5. Building resonance

To allow your voice to grow it can be useful to push it into different parts of the body and experience how the sound changes. Try buzzing like a bee into your chest and then the roof of the mouth and now the sinuses - now see if you can buzz in all available spaces at the same time. Something you will learn quickly in any singing lesson is how to create space. Creating space will then give you more sound to play with and more options when you are making your vocal choices. You can also open up the ‘Bzzzz’ into an ‘Ahhh’ and see if the sound has ‘grown’ or ‘thickened’ in its resonant quality. 

6. Hydrate

It takes water a little time to reach the larynx after you have swallowed it, and it is essential that you drink water prior to and at intervals during a taxing performance. Try adding some fresh fruit to your drink to detoxify, cleanse and soothe the body and mind before and during singing. Our personal favourite is lemon and lime water.

7. Spine rolls

At City Vocal Coach, we’re firm believers that to get the most out of our voices, we have to learn to ‘get behind the voice’ physically. So, what does that mean? Well, first things first, let’s wake up the body. Roll down the spine and hanging over the waist, allow yourself to connect to the breath, now, slowly roll up, vertebrae by vertebrae, encouraging the spine to lengthen as you pull up to your full height. Carrying out this spine roll a handful of times is one of the best ways to awaken the spine, allow fresh blood to rush to the head and connect to the breath through the body which, crucially, supports the voice.

8. Brush the teeth with the tongue

The tongue is a huge and enthusiastic muscle and it really can’t help itself, but you can help it. To develop control over your tongue – warm up and exercise the muscle to increase awareness of just how big it is. Try brushing the teeth with the tongue, ten times around the front and back teeth corner to corner in a circular motion and then another ten times in the reverse direction. Keep doing so in ascending numerical order until the root of the tongue really aches. You may only get to around seven or eight in the early stages of doing this exercise. This is an excellent and silent vocal warm up.

9. Sirens

Sirening can be extremely useful when warming up the voice, not just because travelling through different vocal registers on one breath helps to open up your range in preparation for singing, but also because it helps to develop the range and strengthen your transition from chest to head and back again. A singing teacher can help you to find the quickest and most effective of ways of warming up your particular vocal instrument and sirening can be a great exercise in listening to, feeling where the voice currently is and deciding where you want it to be. 

To do this you can begin in your chest voice in a lower register on a ‘ng’ sound and the slowly, smoothly siren your way up to the top of your range and then up into your head voice; at the top, this should sound like a puppy whimpering. Try repeating this exercise a few times and changing the shape you are working in. For example: on an “Ah’ on an ‘Mm’ and then on a ‘Oo’. 

Remember that everyone’s bio mechanics, and vocal anatomy, is different. Singing lessons can help you work out what will work best for you. There are a bunch of warm ups and vocal exercises to try out and choose from; the key, though, to a good vocal warm up is knowing your voice and understanding what is required of you. This way you can design your warm up based around your needs. The most important thing is that you feel healthy and prepared because this will inspire confidence in your performance.

Photo by Seb Barsoumian on Unsplash