Why is warming up your voice important

These cough exercises should also help clear your throat. Jaws — Exercise your jaws and mouth by gently separating the lower and upper jaws with your fingers from your cheeks.

Massage that gap in circular motions while gently opening and closing your mouth. Do a few more repetitions. Afterwards, stretch your upper and lower jaws sideways, in opposite directions, as you would with a pair of scissors. You will feel the muscles snap in and out as you do that. Shoulders — Body tension is felt mostly in the shoulders. A lot of tension and pain in the shoulders is a clear symptom of bad posture. And usually bad posture stems from failing to properly relax your shoulders before and during singing.

Simply raise your shoulders and keep them hunched for up to five seconds before dropping and relaxing them. Repeat this a couple more times. While your shoulders are hunched you could also stretch your neck sideways a couple of times to release tension from there as well.

Lip trills — What you do with your lips determines how your voice sounds as it leaves your mouth. Relax the muscles in your lips by doing up to ten lip trills. Simply close and pout your lips as loosely as you can.

Let them vibrate by exhaling and letting air out through them. This should produce a buzzing sound, which will warm both your lips and voice. Repeat several times for greater effect. Hums — While lip trills warm the lips, humming is great for exercising and warming the throat.

To produce the humming sound, close both your mouth and throat and gently force air from your lungs into your mouth while holding your breath. Prolong the action as long as you can before finally stopping to exhale. Do the same exercise a few more times, and then a couple more with your mouth open. Sing from the nose — With your mouth closed, arch the roof of your mouth as if you are trying to force words out through your nose.

As you do that, try to reproduce the humming sound from the exercise above. Give it up to five sweeps, increasing pitch a few decibels higher and even lower with each rep. Any activity that demands physical exertion requires you to properly prepare your body. You would not expect a football player to run onto the field, for kick off, right off the team bus. They should first warm the muscles with gentle stretches before the tough tackling of the game itself.

So it should be for singers, because singing, though not as strenuous, is also physical activity. Going straight to belting high tempo notes without any warm up will strain your voice and pretty much every muscle involved in its production. Show your vocal folds and body some love by warming up every time before you sing. Your voice will be clearer, muscles relaxed, and your musical senses wide awake.

The diaphragm is a muscle between your chest and your belly that governs how much air you inhale and exhale when you breathe. The vibrations are caused by air being pushed out of your lungs. Your diaphragm is what controls the pushing and is responsible for putting power behind your voice. A hissing breath exercise is a great way to start when learning how to warm up your voice before singing. This technique forces vocalists to sing from their diaphragms and improves breath control.

Once you build more lung capacity and get comfortable with this exercise, you can breathe in for a seven count and exhale for a 12 count. After vocal warm-ups and singing, it is essential that you also cool down your voice. You can use the same vocal exercises you used during your warm-up, starting with the most intense and working down to the least intense. Simply using the humming vocal exercise will also allow your voice to cool down and relax.

Following these tips will keep your voice strong and allow you to perform at your best. These quick and easy vocal warm-ups will refine your technique, build your vocal power and control, and help expand your vocal range.

At School of Rock, our trained vocal instructors teach students all aspects of singing, including warm-ups and other vocal techniques that thousands of professional singers use every day to keep their voices in shape and sounding their best. Ready to start singing? Sign up for a singing lesson now, or read more about our perforamnce-based music programs.

Share Facebook Twitter. Why do you need to warm up your voice? Yawn-sigh Technique For this quick vocal exercise , simply yawn take in air with your mouth closed. Vocal Straw Exercise To perform the vocal straw exercise also known as straw phonation , take a straw and hum through it.

Lip buzz Vocal warm-up As far as vocal warm-ups go, lip buzz or lip trill, as it is sometimes called is very simple. Tongue trill exercise The tongue trill vocal exercise is difficult for some singers. Jaw Loosening ExerciseS When singing, you want to drop your jaw lower than when you are just talking.

Sing from Your Diaphragm When singing, it is vitally important to use proper breathing techniques to avoid hurting your voice. What is your diaphragm? Practice Makes Permanent, and if you practice regular warm-ups before you sing as well as on off days you will be a better singer in every way. Singing is one of the most natural things in the world. But, developing a strong, adept voice takes work! The sound of your voice is the result of many things, most of which you have a lot of control over….

Hi Singers. A friend of ours who is currently finishing her degree in voice asked: I have heard several times a singer must drink water to keep the voice hydrated. My question…. Most of us are almost done with the big Christmas productions. Unfortunately, many are also coughing and having trouble hearing due to head congestion. Winter season at least…. Like most days, today I have also given a little thought to the human larynx.