How do I warmup?

What is the thing with warming up your voice?

It’s easy to warmup for physical exercise, right? You just want to wake up your muscles and get your blood flowing so you don’t do yourself an injury. Isn’t it just the same for your voice?

Well, yes and no.

 Yes, we’re working with a muscular system, so waking up the muscles is the name of the game.

No, because knowing which muscles we’re using is often less obvious. Singing is a complex and holistic activity involving muscles that you may not even be able to feel, never mind see or name. So, if you treat your vocal warmup the same way as your gym warmup without knowing what you’re doing, you’re likely to be using a sledgehammer to tune your pegs!

Personally, I used to find I’d stumble on one of these 3 problems:

1. I’d go to warm up and just don’t know where to begin, so I’d give up or make an ineffective half job of it
2. I’d warm up and I’m tired before I even start singing
3. I don’t know what to do, so I skip it, then I hit my stride halfway through my set or, even worse, at the end!

The truth is, warming up is an art which takes a bit of time to master. The good news is you don’t have to be a warmup guru to glean the benefits. Read on for some myth-busting tips…

The first thing is you should not have to warm up for an hour to be ready to sing! 

Aim to warmup no longer than 10-15 minutes.

Your warmup is NOT:

• Time to perfect that phrase or note that scares you
• The moment to extend your range a bit further than yesterday and bust a gut doing it
• The time to achieve your very best sound so you know you can

...so don't get sidetracked into this stuff. This is what you might do in your practice. If you’re well prepared, you need to trust that all-of-the-above stuff is done as well as you can. If you don't feel well prepared (and it happens, so don't be too hard on yourself!) then freaking out about it now is probably not going to help - especially if you wear yourself out in your warmup.

The warmup IS: 

• To set yourself into ready mode
• To wake up your body, mind and voice
• To touch in with the muscles you know you’re going to need
• To gently but affirmatively stretch into to the appropriate range for what you’re about to do

Choose as precise exercises as you can to achieve what you want – it doesn’t have to sound pretty, so if anyone is listening in on you, it's their problem!

I recommend starting with the body.

I remember waiting in the dressing room, moments before going on for a performance and my colleague dropped down for a quick plank in his black tie. I was astonished, so what do I do? I gave it a go myself... in my ballgown! My body was wide awake and it was a great way to ground all that pre-show nervous energy. I liked it. Who knew?

This may not be for everyone, but if your body is awake and ready, it’s more likely to be supporting your singing as it’s naturally designed to do. 

You could try slowly rolling down your spine to a forward bend and back up again, touching in with every vertebra as you go. Even gentler still, you can try slowly rolling onto your toes and then lowering your heels back a few times, trying not to hold your breath as you find your poise and balance. The aim is to see if you can activate your body so it feels ready, but not tired, awake but loose. It doesn't have to be big to do the job and should only takes a few moments.

Then you could try some non-vocal exercises. 

Non-vocal?! Yup. I sometimes like to activate my body-voice connection before activating the voice itself. It's like a dress rehearsal for the support muscles and it doesn't cost the freshness of your voice anything at all.

I find trumpet buzzing really effective, especially if I'm feeling tired and lethargic. It helps to open the throat and you can really feel the muscles in your body connect. It's quite intense and can really make your head buzz so, again, you don't have to do much of it to feel the benefit!  

(This is the sound a trumpeter learns to make with their lips before they learn to play the instrument. Check out this video from a trumpeter for tips on how to do it.) 

Now for some vocalising…

Start easy and stretch the range with a light touch. Just do enough so that the sound is active in the different parts of your range. I find a playful approach useful, so we don’t fixate or get too intense about it. Remember, it’s awake but loose we’re looking for.

There are so many possible voice exercises, so this is where having your own catalogue comes into its own. Here are a few staples that I like to us:

• I hum a bit in my low voice, using speech-quality sound.
• Then I like to find my upper ‘slim’ sound using cry and whimper, crying onto a high pitch and sliding down like a little puppy dog sound.
• I might start connecting my lower and higher registers using scales or arpeggios up and down on a favourite vowel - for me, it's an 'i/ee' or 'y/ü' sound.
• I'm also a fan lip trills, though it’s important not to overblow these – if you’re feeling dizzy, it may be enough of these! (You can also use rolled Rs or voiced fricatives for variety.)

The last super important tip? Be hydrated! 

Imagine you have dry, itchy eyes. It feels terrible, and they soon look red and inflamed. Your vocal folds are wet too, but we can’t feel them or touch them like we can our eyes – we just hear the effect in our voice. Drinking water while you sing might feel good, but the truth is it takes a few hours to actually hydrate the parts that count. Think ahead and drink up. I glug a whole water bottle every morning when I wake up to get ahead for the day.

Like most things with voice care, it’s good for more than just your voice – your body will thank you, too!

Here's a little graphic to summarise: