Singing Tips: Vocal Warm Up
The benefits of warming up your voice cannot be overstated. It’s one of the most important singing tips your can ever get. Even someone who has been performing on stage for years will notice a difference if they warm up properly before stepping up before the crowd. Read on to hear our story.
It was about 45 minutes before show time. We just finished getting our outfits and hair adjusted just the way we wanted. It’s usually pretty quiet in the green room as the artists go through our lyrics and try to imagine the show ahead going great.
Ever since I started working on really improving my voice a few years ago I have always warmed up before I sing. This time instead of doing it all by myself, I decided to suggest to a couple of the other members of the group that we should do a warm up together. They replied, “No Problem.” I thought they must be humouring me.
We started off doing some light humming, making sure we didn’t reach too high. Then it was the multi-purposed “lip-rolls” or “lip bubbles” to a simple scale that started low, climbed up and octive and came back down again. Since they were new to the “lip-rolls” I went over the basics with them;
- Relax your lips.
- Pinch your cheeks as to make your lips loose.
- Add a deep “uh” sound.
- Keep your airflow even.
The guys laughed a little because we all looked silly and sounded even goofier.
Next it was a siren like “wooo” that imitated…well…a siren. The key here was to keep the sound connected from the chest voice to head and then back down to the chest voice. (It’s harder that it seems especially if your voice isn’t warmed up).
We then did some scales on a light “ah” sound.
In about 10 minutes the warm up was done. I was about to get a surprise during the first intermission in the green room.
At the break Jim walks up to me with his head slightly tilted and eyes opened a little wider that usual and says, “Man, did my songs ever seem easy! That warm up we did sure opened my voice right up. You are going to have to teach me those exercises.”
It was a great feeling for me to take some of the singing tips I have learned and help my friend out. The main point of this post is to have a warm up routine you do before you sing on stage, at Karaoke or heck even before you close the shower curtain.
Leave a Reply