The Power of Vocal Warm Ups

Vocal warm ups are crucial to any singer's daily routine¹. Vocal warm ups are also crucial to the one who sings on rare occasions. For some odd reason though, we tend to forget this vital beginning step in singing.

Pause and reflect on a sport that you participate in regularly (if you don't have a sport, use the "sport" of writing!). As you prepare to play that particular sport, what is one of the first things that you do? Why you stretch of course! Any why do you stretch? You stretch because you are trying to prepare your body (or if you chose writing, your mind) to the task ahead. You may start by running in place for 30 seconds, doing static stretches for your hamstrings and quads, or in the case of writing, brainstorming ideas for new topics to articulate. Whatever the case, you are attempting to prep your body for the sequence of upcoming actions.

The exact same idea goes for singing. Our vocal cords need to be warmed up! Warming up our voices before we sing or speak adequately prepares our vocal cords for the attention (or in some cases abuse!) they are about to receive. Neglecting vocal warm ups can have devastating effects on the singer, such as premature vocal fatigue and/or hoarseness.

So what exactly should be involved in your vocal warm ups? This is a good question with quite an ambiguous answer. I cannot say that there is one perfect warm up routine for every individual because every individual has a unique singing voice. However, there are a few exercises in general that I would recommend to a singer of any caliber.

1) This first vocal warm up I would recommend is called vocal fry. Vocal fry consists of letting your vocal cords vibrate at their lowest frequency. Hooray! That "groggy" sound you have in the morning actually has a use now! Gently make the groggy sound to gradually loosen and massage your vocal cords. This works wonderfully as your very first warm up exercise. The length at which you chose to use this exercise depends on your voice, but I would normally recommend at least a few minutes of vocal fry before moving on to the next warm up.

2) The next vocal warm up I would recommend is the lip roll (to see a good example of the lip roll, click on the link). The lip roll is an excellent exercise that gets blood flowing to the vocal cords. It prepares your voice by relieving it of excess tension from your previous night's sleep while engaging your inner larynx muscles. Remember to keep the dopey sound underneath the lip rolls as you ascend and descend in your range.

3) The final vocal warm up I would recommend is the neutral "mum" exercise. The emphasis here is on "neutral". Keeping your larynx neutral while warming up your voice sets the pace for the rest of your singing workout. Focus on keeping the larynx neutral all the way through your desired scale (octave, arpeggio, double octave, etc.).

After you have run through these vocal warm ups, it is left up to you to decide if you voice needs further stretching. Like I said before, every individual has a unique singing voice, so you need to experiment and find out what works best for you! Whatever you do, though, be sure not to neglect this part of your singing routine!

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