The Vocal Warm-up and What It can do for You

Hello fellow singers! I know it's been a while since I last posted, but rest assured, once I begin my new job as a chorus teacher, I am sure to have an array of subject matter and stories to tell you! For now, I want to take a moment to speak on one of the most important parts of vocal health, and that is the vocal warm-up.

Anytime I teach a private voice lesson, I begin with a series of stretches. (Some of these are covered in my previous blog post: Vocal Secret Weapon #3). The concept behind stretching is to let the body know that you're getting ready to sing and also to remind yourself that singing is a full-body experience. It's also simply easier to sing when all the muscles of the body are warm as opposed to tensed up.

After we stretch (and yes, I always stretch and sing with my students; it's unreasonable to expect them to do something that I can't do!), I take the student through vocal warm-ups. This might surprise you, but I spend at least half of each voice lesson on vocal warm-ups. Why? They are so important to helping a singer master the correct technique, and they can also be directly incorporated into the singer's repertoire, or "real life" material, as I like to call it.

The main purpose of vocal warm-ups are to help the vocal cords avoid injury. Aside from that, warm-ups prepare the body for heavy singing, help develop agility in the ranges, and get the singer in the habit of practicing good vocal technique!!! It's a win-win situation all around when you warm-up.

One thing I have to emphasize when talking about vocal warm-ups is that they are just that: warm-ups. You perform them as a preliminary exercise to singing whatever other material you're practicing. Therefore, they shouldn't be perfect or you wouldn't even need to use them! When I was recording some of my own vocal exercises for my students, I actually had not sung at all that day before I began. I used those exercises as my warm-up while recording them! They aren't perfect, but they illustrate the way warm-ups are supposed to sound, and more importantly, they provided the perfect warm-up for my voice that day. When you are performing warm-ups, they should be done with ease and should bring you more energy, not drain it! If the exercise is too strenuous, then it shouldn't be considered a warm-up. You don't want to do the hard work before you've even have a chance to sing a song!

Now that I've hopefully talked you into adding a warm-up routine to your singing, you may be wondering where to find warm-ups. The answer to that is easy. Look around you; they are everywhere! You can easily find warm-ups on the internet. Use this quick guide to help you evaluate if a particular warm-up will work.

1. Make sure the warm-up is easy to understand

2. Make sure you can perform the warm-up with ease to a certain degree and that it doesn't tire out your voice or temporarily decrease your range

3. After you perform it, you should feel "warm" around the throat and articulators. That's usually a good sign that you can begin practicing your other material

4. Make sure the warm-up actually helps your voice develop and grow

Warm-ups are critical to your success as a singer! They will ultimately help you increase your range and memorize what it feels like to sing properly.

Vocal Secret Weapon #1!

I've decided to do a series on secret weapons for the voice in three installments. We'll cover the first one today, but in order to find out the other two, you'll just have to keep reading my blog! How's that for a marketing ploy?

Are you ready for Vocal Secret Weapon #1? Imaginary drumroll, please...

Vocal Secret Weapon #1: Room Temperature Water

Ok, so maybe it's not such a secret. In fact, it seems kind of obvious that any person in general should be consuming a lot of water (I believe the recommendation is eight 8 oz. glasses a day, but who really does that, I'd love to know). But, this simple and free gift to us is often one that gets overlooked when we're looking for other more complex ways to strengthen our voices. Sometimes, it can be as easy as drinking a nice, lukewarm glass of water!

Notice I said lukewarm water as opposed to cold water. Why should singers be drinking lukewarm water? Lukewarm, room temperature water is a closer temperature to your body than cool, just-out-of-the-fridge water. Therefore, when it hits your throat, it will not shock the vocal cords the way that cold water will. It's totally ok to consume cold water, but your best bet before a performance is to keep it room temperature. This is the optimal way to lubricate your vocal cords and gently clear out any excess mucus.

Many singers I know will drink hot teas or use natural herbal sprays intended to clear out the throat before singing, but why not take advantage of the body's natural cleanser, water? There is nothing wrong with these other products, but in my experience, water has always helped me the most.

There are so many benefits to drinking a large amount of water each day, and one of the most recent benefits I just found out about is that water can actually increase your energy. In Joyce Meyer's book, Look Great, Feel Great (copyright 2006), she states that many times the middle of the day slump that many people experience is actually caused by a thirst for water instead of what we interpret to be tiredness! I often fight the urge to take a nap at 3 pm during the weekday and absolutely will fall asleep if I allow myself to even sit on the couch!

I don't know about you, but the chance of increasing my energy level and improving my singing makes me want to pour a glass of the good stuff right now! I hope you'll go to the kitchen after reading this and get your own glass of room temperature water. Then we'll have an imaginary toast to a better singing voice as a result! Drink up.