Why We Use Vocal Exercises

There aren’t a whole lot of shortcuts in learning how to sing, but there is one “industry secret trick” that will speed you toward your goals faster than anything else. That trick is doing vocal exercises. And specifically, the trick is to do the right exercises for your particular goals.

Building Skill with Vocal Exercises

Skill-building requires a certain degree of consistency and repetition that you rarely find built into songs. For instance, if you want to focus on improving your vibrato, you can use an exercise with the vowel that is currently best for you, on the pitch level where you currently find vibrato the easiest to achieve. Then you can work up and down from that point in half steps to bring more of your range up to snuff. As you master vibrato on that vowel, you might change it for a renewed challenge. A song, however, might require vibrato access on specific pitches and vowels that aren’t in line with your current skill set, and you might find yourself banging your head against the wall, trying to master those specific spots, rather than actually learning the skill.

What if your tongue tends to retract somewhere in your range? A song might reveal the problem on one pitch at one point and you might feel the need to plug away at that moment and drive yourself crazy. Or, over the course of the right exercise, you will discover where the tongue retraction begins in your range, and use the exercise to relieve it, half step by half step, until you’ve trained tongue tension out of your technique altogether. There are lots of wonderful strategies you can use to retrain the tongue in an exercise that can be much more challenging to implement in a song.

How to Use Vocal Exercises

Exercises are excellent ways to train better pitch accuracy, breath management, range extension, vocal compression, freedom from tension, mouth and jaw positioning, register selection, volume control, vibrato, agility/riffs/runs, etc. They can be kind of like training wheels. You can zoom in on a particular skill and give it the focused attention it deserves in a controlled environment before advancing into the wilderness of a song. 

Some of my favorite exercises address multiple issues at once. For example, here are the results you can expect from practicing singing “gyuug” (uu as in book, or [U] in IPA) on an octave arpeggio (1358531), up as high as you can go and down as low as you can go, in half steps:

1. Vocal compression: increased vocal compression thanks to the plosive “G’s” which encourage your vocal folds to come together.
2. Laryngeal stability: the [U] vowel encourages your larynx to remain low.
3. Tongue freedom: the “G” and “EE” (“y”) encourages your tongue to be up and forward.
4. Jaw and Mouth neutrality: the vowel encourages a jaw that is not too open or closed and a mouth that is not spread.
5. Registral blending: the octave pattern requires a gradual transition from vocal fold thickness to thinness as you move up through your range, and then back again. The vowel also encourages blending or flexibility for interesting acoustic reasons that are beyond the scope of this article.
6. Pitch accuracy: When the above elements of your technique are in an optimal place, accurate pitch will eventually follow.

The body will fight you if you haven’t yet mastered the technique. The first thing to fail will probably be the integrity of the chosen word (for instance, “gyuug” might turn into “gyuhg” or “gyaag”). Then, you might accidentally flip into another register from the goal register. Then, you might find your volume is inconsistent, or a tension has crept in and you can’t get to the next higher note. The integrity of the pitch may initially fail as well, though this is normal as the vocal folds learn the coordination. Ensuring other aspects of your technique are being executed optimally, plus repetition of the pitch, will help this process. Bottom line - when you properly execute an exercise, consistency throughout is the name of the game.

And a second note of caution: this exercise, though wonderful, isn’t for everybody. It will push some people in the opposite direction of their vocal goals; for instance, a singer who is trying to embrace a brighter quality, a singer who is trying to work towards a headier coordination, or a singer who is trying to incorporate more nasal resonance into their technique might not benefit from the beloved “gyuug” as much as they would from an exercise that’s more in line with their goals.

Find an Expert to Help

It’s certainly helpful to have a voice teacher who can assign exercises that are just right for you and your goals, but it is also absolutely possible to benefit from exercises you find online or on apps. Just make sure you:

1. Choose exercises that are in line with your specific goals.

2. Sing in a range that begins in a proper place for you and moves into challenging territory.

3. Switch up exercises regularly so you don’t stagnate.

Intentional Exercises Are Key

Train your voice like athletes, dancers, and instrumentalists train: with exercises. They can help you achieve your vocal goals. You will probably find that you’ll only do some exercises for a short time, while others you’ll return to time and time again because you find them so helpful. Be patient, don’t force your voice. Don’t do anything that hurts, but be prepared for things to feel a little weird sometimes! Riding a bike or swimming doesn’t exactly feel normal the first time, does it? If you get stuck then move on to something else and revisit the exercise again, later. Just like with any other kind of exercise, you’ll begin to notice changes not in one day, but over time. Focussed exercises can do wonders if you’re seeking real growth and change in your singing.