Warmups: The Ultimate Guide

Do you wake up in the morning and have a groggy voice? Or notice a lot of vocal fry in your voice when you speak throughout the day? 

Much like a dancer stretches before they dance, or like a batter does some practice swings before they approach the plate, vocal warmups are a great way to prepare your voice for singing. When done right, vocal warmups provide a gentle way to stretch the vocal muscles to the max and to approximate the vocal folds efficiently. 

How Do I Warm Up Properly?

The amount of warming up you need to do is specific to you. Some people feel ready to sing after only a few minutes of warmups, while others swear by a fifteen- or twenty-minute routine.

Most vocal warmups promote low subglottic air pressure, steady airflow, and relaxed extrinsic muscles, resulting in an easy and gentle navigation through the range with minimal audible register transitions.

The line between warmups and exercises can be a little hazy. The way I think of the difference is that vocal warmups use very few vocal resources because they are so gentle, but they are also fairly distant from regular singing. Exercises use more resources because they are less gentle and more similar to regular singing. You might find you like to include an exercise or two in your pre-performance ritual to reinforce particular coordinations, but it’s good to be aware of how taxing they may be on your voice. You don’t want to use too many vocal resources before you sing a multi-hour show. Similarly, a runner might have a jog the morning of a marathon, but they certainly don’t want to push it.

Categories of Vocal Warmups

Here are some categories of vocal warmups to try. Do small, medium, and big sirens with each of these. Avoid getting louder as you ascend in pitch. Maybe think of a “4 out of 10” volume. You might find you have some favorites, but I like to mix it up with my students since these warmups are all a little different. As you experiment with these, try pressing into the mushy, fleshy place behind your chin and in front of your neck with your thumbs. If you feel the muscles under there push back at your thumbs as you ascend in pitch, start again. If these muscles still push back, try another warmup. Some might be easier for you than others in this regard.

Fricatives: 

• A continuous V, Z, voiced Th, or J

Nasal Consonants: 

• A continuous M (humming), N, or Ng (like the end of the word sung)

Trills:

• Lip trills - the lips bubble or buzz against each other
• Tongue trills - the tongue rolls, like a rolled “r” in Spanish.
• Raspberries - the tongue bubbles or buzzes against the upper or lower lip

Other SOVT:

• Straw phonation: Blowing air through a drinking straw or coffee stirrer, and then adding pitch to the stream of air. Experiment with straw size until you find what allows you to siren easily.
  The “Hw~”: Imagine there is a straw between your puckered lips. Blow air through the small space and add pitch.
• Lip trumpet: gently close your neutral lips. Blow them open with a small stream of air and add pitch.

All of these warmups provide air resistance at the lips/tongue, and, therefore, reduce the amount of air pressure at the vocal fold level. Some provide different amounts of resistance than others. Some discourage tongue retraction/activation (like the tongue trill, Th, N). Some are nice for relaxing the jaw (the Ng, the Lip trumpet with the thumb press). A rounded or puckered lip generally encourages pharyngeal space; a neutral lip allows for easy laryngeal rise. 

Don’t worry if you find some or all of the trills impossible. Some people can do them easily, some can’t do them at all. If you struggle with one trill, move on to another. If you struggle with all the trills, you aren’t alone. The other warmups will work out just as well for you. They are all great! You don’t have to be able to do a lip trill to be a wonderful singer.