Warm Up Your Voice for Singing 

Learn how to keep your voice strong and healthy. Want to sing at your best? Try these warm ups. 
All the arts we practice are apprenticeship. 
The big art is our life.   
                          —M.C. Richards

10 Vocal Warm Ups for Singers

Woman singing vocal warmup with good posture.

Professional vocalists take care of their voices. They know that warming up plays an important role in keeping the voice healthy. Like any physical activity, there are singing muscles that need to be warmed up to sound their best. Learn how to sing better. Warm up first, then you will be ready to take the stage and deliver that hit performance.
1. Start With Good Posture
Singing your best requires good airflow to create your best sound. Good posture builds good airflow. Align your body for good posture whether you are standing or sitting to sing.
Standing:
  • Feet flat on the floor shoulder width apart.
  • Balance your weight equally on both legs.
  • Shoulders back and head up, neck relaxed.
  • Imagine a cord or wire keeping all parts of you in line.
Sitting:
  • Feet flat on the floor with knees bent and relaxed.
  • Shoulders back and head up, neck relaxed.
  • Sit towards the front of the chair.
  • Keep your back away from the chair.
Most singers agree it is better to stand and sing than to sit and sing. Periodically, as you sing, check in on your posture.
2. Breathe Deeply and Relaxed
Use the deep part of your lungs. Most people tend to use only the top of their lungs. Place a hand on your stomach and take a deep breath. Breath so your hand moves outward and upward, instead of your chest and shoulders. This means your diaphragm is in action. Now relax, be conscious of your core, and stay loose. If there is tension in your breathing, that radiates to the muscles of your voice box. You can train yourself to breathe better.
3. Exercise the Diaphragm
Your diaphragm will help you create the best airflow for singing. Try this exercise:
  1. Place your hands on your waistline, above the hips.
  2. Say this sound: sss, sss, sss, ssssssss.
  3. Make the sound firmly, forcing out the air and pulling it back in.
You may feel your abdominal muscles tighten as you do this. Control of the abdominal muscles and the diaphragm will let you sing your best.
4. Relax Your Jaw
Releasing the jaw reduces tension in the mouth and jaw area during singing. Your hands can massage the facial muscles:
  1. Place the heels of your hand below the cheekbone.
  2. Press in and push down from the cheeks to the jaw.
  3. Let your jaw droop down in a relaxed way.
Massage these facial muscles for a few moments.
5. Stretch Mouth, Tongue, and Neck
For any physical activity, it’s good to stretch the muscles that will be in use. For singing, that includes the mouth, lips, tongue, and neck muscles.
  • Open your mouth wide, as if you were yawning. With the jaw wide give a good “smile” to stretch the lips. Then bring the lips back down as if saying, “ooh.”
  • Open the mouth wide again. Stick your tongue out. Move it to one side and then to the other. Then move it in a circle.
  • Move your neck back and “lift” the back of your head high. Now stretch the lips back in a “smiley grimace.” Then push the lips forward as if in an extended kiss. Wiggle just the tip of the lips up and down, like a fish.
6. Practice Sounds: Sirens, Kazoos
Some fun warm ups involve making sounds. Sirens and kazoos are classic warm ups for singers.
  • Sirens: Mimic the sound of a siren! Run up and then down your vocal range. Start by making the sound, “ooo” and then the sounds “wooah wooah wooah.” Start on a low note, when you reach your highest note hold for a bit, and then slide it back down to the low note.
  • Kazoos: Set your mouth posture by pretending you are sucking in spaghetti with an inhalation. On the exhalation make the “woo” sound and it will be a buzzing kind of sound.
7. Do Lip and Tongue Trills
These are fun and really work to release tension. They relax the lips and tongue and also engage your breathing and voice.
Lip Trills: Do a “raspberry” with your lips.
  1. Place your lips together.
  2. Leave them loose.
  3. Release air in a steady stream so that your lips vibrate.
  4. Make sounds such as “h” and “b”.
Tongue Trills: Create something like the Spanish “r” sound.
  1. Place your tongue behind your upper teeth.
  2. Exhale strongly and trill the tongue.
  3. Make a steady vocal sound and keep the breath even.
  4. Vary the pitch up and down a scale while trilling.
Yes, it sounds like child’s play! No wonder this is such a popular warm up.
8. Sing Sung
This is like the siren, only making an “ng” sound. Take the word “sung.” Leave off the “s” and sing the rest, “ung.” Keep your mouth closed. All sound should travel out the nose. Start low and go high and back again. Practice several sweeps, releasing higher and higher into your range.
9. Run Through Some Scales
Doing scales warms up your voice slowly, with an eye towards extending towards the top and bottom of your range.
  1. Breathe right, hold the correct posture.
  2. Begin with low mid-range and gently glide up the scale.
  3. Reverse and go down the scale.
  4. Try a scale with each of these sounds—ma, me, oo,
Keep it gentle and don’t force notes that are too high or too low. You don’t want your voice to become strained.
10. Use Humming
Humming is another great way to warm up through scales. All the air is directed through the nostrils so that the resonating cavities and sinuses help bring the sound alive. Lips closed, jaw relaxed. Make the sound mmmm as you glide up and down the scales. Humming is also a great way to cool down the voice after singing.
Author: Karla Beatty About
Warm up exercises take the tension off your voice to prevent strain. Singing professionals know that a warmed up voice recovers much faster than a non-warmed up voice. Keep your vocal apparatus healthy and strong.
  • Pace yourself.
  • Don’t exercise too much when you start.
  • Don’t exercise past the point of comfort.
  • NEVER sing to the point of pain.
If you liked this Simple10s article, you might also enjoy How to Breathe Better. To learn more ways to practice breathing, read Breathing for Meditation.

You may also be interested in more articles in the Simple10s category Creative Arts.

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