Quick Warm-up Exercises For Singing
- All Things Breathing
- Slides & Belting Warmup
- Mixed & Head Voice
If you’ve ever had a performance and did not do a warm-up, you may have found it a little more difficult.
Warm-ups are to help your voice get ready to sing.
Missing a warm-up means you could potentially be setting yourself up for some inconsistency.
The first exercises to start with are all things breathing, then some slides and belting, and lastly working through your mixed and head vocal registers towards the top of your range.
All Things Breathing
Realistically you never stop breathing, so doing exercises for your diaphragm is more aimed to make sure your muscles are working properly.
Start by doing some full breath lip rolls x4. Make sure you are not re-inhaling mid exhale.
Lip rolls can also be used doing slides for lighter breaths and easier control singing soft songs.
Next, practice doing the hut exercise. Do at least 20 consecutive huts.
Using a metronome or tempo can help increase the vocal work for better results.
Other efficient breathing exercises include slides for vocal dynamics.
Slides & Belting Warm-up
Vocal slides are one of the most efficient ways to warm up your voice.
You practice breathing every time you work on slides.
That being said, there are different applications of doing slides that can be personalized to better fit your warm up style.
Slides for belting, slides for mixed voice or head, and slides for volume control/range are the most common.
Start with the Soft Palate yawn exercise to start hitting some of your higher notes.
Do this about 5 times and move on to the rest of the Soft Palate belting exercises(How are you, How Now Brown Cow, Yay).
Next, work on sliding your voice into the belt.
This can be done by using a piano and playing the 1st and the 5th note for every key. With the 5th note having the most volume and staying in your chest voice.
The same can be done for softer vocals by starting in your chest on the 1st note and softening your voice on the 5th.
The quantity of which you do slides should be your full range, unless you are on limited time, then work in the range you have to sing for the song.
Mixed & Head Voice
The mixed and head voice are often the most overlooked exercises when it comes to a warm-up.
If you are mostly singing in your chest you may not need to use much mixed voice.
However, in the event the song has alot of use in multiple registers.
Practice starting by singing from a C5 to a C4, and then B4 – B3, continue to move down until your lowest note.
The final thing that’s really helpful for warmups in mixed and head is scales.
You can use the lollies exercise/jumping chromatics to help with warming up your movement.
Accuracy can be hard if you haven’t hit the notes consistently.
Spend time working on these exercise to increase your consistency singing before performing.
