There are many benefits that vocal warm-ups offer singers. They can assist in loosening your vocal folds and enable you to use your voice for an extended period of time without straining it. Toning your vocal folds is vital for you to be a versatile singer and for you to have better voice acting capabilities. Also, sincerely running through your set of vocal warm-ups reduces your chances of vocal injury. Know that if you plan to perform for an audience feeling stressed or tense you will sound stressed and tense.
However, if you are feeling relaxed and ready physically to sing a song or read a script, your performance will reflect that. And for that relaxed state, you need vocal warm ups.
Vocal Warm Ups That Can Boost Your Singing
Body Stretching
The first vocal warm-up prescribed by experts is stretching your body. Doing side stretches expands your rib cage and makes your lungs feel full of air. Just inhale and raise your arms to the sky. Now exhale and lean slightly to the left, lengthening your side body.
Next, hold it for a few seconds before you inhale to the centre and breath out to the right. The next exercise is to stand with your feet apart. Now breath in with your arms facing upwards to the sky. Next, slowly bend at the waist and breath out while taking your hands towards the floor. Remain in this position for a couple of breaths and then slowly come back to the standing position while inhaling.
Breathing Exercises
The second important vocal warm-up exercise is breathing exercises which are a perfect way to relax your vocal folds before an important performance or recording. They also help expand your vocal range. A simple exercise, to begin with, is the Straw Trick where you hum or just inhale and exhale with a straw in your mouth while keeping your face and body still and mouth closed. Another exercise is Lay on the Floor.
Here you sing a song while laying on your back on the floor. This exercise might feel strange initially but you will feel your entire diaphragm moving if you place your hand on your stomach. A final and useful breathing exercise is the “Hissing Exhale.” Here you begin by inhaling air till you feel comfortable. Now when you breathe out, ensure that you produce a hissing sound. Every time you do this exercise, make sure that your inhaling and exhaling time is longer until you find yourself running out of breath.
Vocal Warm-up Exercises
Humming and lip trills are vocal warm-up exercises usually recommended by experts. Humming is a nice way to loosen your facial muscles and warm up your vocal folds. Together with lip trills, humming gets your resonators going and in turn restores your vocal tone quality especially after you have slept for a few hours.
Descend On Nasal Consonants
The fourth facial warm-up is to descend on nasal consonants. For instance, the word onion has a nasal tone to it. It is suggested that you should take the ‘gn’ sound in it and stretch it, slide with it and descend with it. Another popular warm-up exercise is to recite words that end in a Z. These are words like fuzz and buzz and one needs to emphasize the Z to make it resonate.
Fricatives
The fifth vocal warm-up is Fricatives. These are consonants formed by obstructing the flow of air in order that a friction sound is produced. Examples of common consonants are Fs, Vs and Ths.
Tongue Twisters
Enunciating tongue twisters clearly is the sixth vocal warm-up exercise that is popular with singers. The key is to be articulate. It is necessary for a singer to be able to distinctly pronounce his or her speech while performing a song. If you do not pronounce the words clearly, your listeners will not understand a word of what you are singing or saying.
Yawning
The seventh vocal warm-up exercise is yawning. When you naturally yawn, your jaw drops and oxygen gets regulated while your soft palate gets extended. Many professional singers have acknowledged that the secret behind their good voices is yawning a lot as it relaxes throat muscles and vocal cords. However, this exercise should be done just a few times and usually at the end of vocal warm-up exercises.
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