5 Reasons To Warm Up Your Voice Your Voice + my top tips to make it less tedious.

1. MOTIVATION AND MOOD

Warm-ups are an essential way to start your practice session to get you in the right head space to sing. If you have a limited amount of time a vocal warm up can center your thoughts so you can maximise your practice.

Motivation is NOT going to fall from the sky.

If you treat your warm up like a ritual which starts every practice session, you will find it a lot easier to focus on your singing.

2. GET IT MOVING

Just like you warm up before a work-out we need to warm up the voice in order to get the muscles all fired up. We don’t want to end up with an injury now do we?

Even if you aren’t singing something high or intense it is still important to stretch the singing muscles before you begin.

3. EAR TRAINING

Little did you know that a lot of voice warm ups are actually ear training & rhythm exercises too.

You will be a multi-tasking Jedi as you train your intonation, harmony, pitch & rhythm through progressive vocal warm ups.

Don’t make them the same each week either!
Keep it interesting so you don’t get locked in one place.

Try one of my Minor warm-ups to change it up

4. STRETCH

For most singers their number one goal is to sing higher & / or lower.

Through warm-ups that gradually stretch the range, you will be there a lot faster than if you were to whack on some Arianna Grande & „give it a go“. Slow & steady wins the race so each week you can inch your way to the next goal note.

5. BREATH

We focus all about making that pretty sound, but we often forget about the breath.

Not in terms of holding it, or „supporting“ it, but about balancing the breath against the vocal folds. It is FAR easier to focus your breath on a vocal ease than that Beyoncé riff. Trust me.

HOW LONG SHOULD I WARM UP FOR?

No one knows.

No seriously it comes down to so many different factors it’s like asking „How long is a piece of string?“

I really enjoyed when Walt Fritz was chatting to the guys over at The Naked Vocalist about how long patients should perform stretches for. His answer was simply „yes.“ You can check out the video here ( I really enjoyed it ).

I am well aware that it doesn’t help you in the slightest but I generally say that one time up & down the range with a simple siren is more than enough to actually get the voice warm. What the hell is a siren? You can learn that over here.

With your voice warm, you need to consider;

1. Am I about to belt the shit out of this thing? Then you need to head over to something that is within the range of the song & is going to get those notes ringing. Like this warm up.
2. Am I about to sing into the stratosphere with folds thinner than a paper wafer? Then you need to head over to something that goes up to that ear piercing high note. Like this little ditty.

3. How the hell am I feeling today? There is nothing worse than trying to push your voice up hill with a pointy stick. So take your time & warm things up slowly. Especially if you are recovering from a cold or you are just having a tired sluggish day.

5 Reasons To Warm Up Your Voice