Have you ever wondered how singers decide to warm up? What’s the formula that they use? And what’s the purpose of those silly little sirens they do? Today, we’re going to break it all down. My goal is to give you tools and knowledge so that you can run with these ideas and create a warm-up routine that is effective and helpful for YOUR specific voice.

A quick note

Before we begin, I just want to note:

1. This formula is geared toward individual singers, NOT groups of singers. If you’re in a choir, the warm up routine will look very different from this, because the goals and outcome are different from a solo singer.
2. Hopefully this goes without saying, but this is not the end-all be-all of warm up routines. There are infinite ways to warm up your voice, and not EVERYONE uses the template I’m going to share.

 

With all of that out of the way, let’s get straight into it!

1. Semi-Occluded

The first category in our warm up routine is called a “semi-occluded” warmup. Semi-occluded means that the mouth is partially closed, so some of the excited energy gets reflected back down to the vocal folds. This helps them vibrate more easily.

 

A teacher explained to me one time that semi-occluded singing resets the voice and puts it back in a healthy placement, no matter what you were doing previously (shouting, screaming, etc). Another teacher told me that certain kinds of semi-occluded warm ups are used in speech therapy and by ENT doctors to give the vocal folds a “massage.”

Here are some examples of semi-occluded warm ups, and resources on how to do them:

• Lip trills
• Raspberries
• Singing through a straw

Each different warm up provides tension release in different parts of the vocal tract, which is why it’s a good idea to rotate between different kinds of these warm ups in your routine.

2. Top to Bottom

Next we have a top-to-bottom warm up. With these, you start at a higher note and descend to lower notes. 

 

What’s the point? To blend your head voice down to your chest voice! The muscles engaged when you are predominantly in your head voice are brought to lower notes, which strengthen them. 

 

• Think about it like doing reps at the gym. As you work your head voice lower, you’re adding on more weights to strengthen those muscles
• It’s also training your head voice to be more disciplined, and giving you the ability to bring those qualities and colors of the head voice into lower notes, making your voice more versatile. 

 

EXAMPLES:

Well, the examples are virtually endless! It’s any pattern that starts from above and goes lower. This could be a scale, 5-note pattern, descending thirds, chords, or any other creative descent you can think of.

I personally tend to stick to the five-note pattern on descents, because I find that half-octave range to be the sweet spot for blending the voice down and being the right amount of challenge without causing the singer to change other weird things to achieve the sound. It’s challenging, but attainable. That’s what we’re after with vocal training.

3. Bottom-to-Top

As you probably guessed, the purpose of the bottom-to-top exercise is the exact opposite of our previous warm up. You want to blend the chest voice upward, into the head voice, to strengthen that relationship. The reasoning is the same, it’s like lifting weights in the gym.

 

This warm up should come with a HUUUUUGE warning sign! Stretching your chest voice upward can cause a lot of vocal damage if not done correctly. The biggest mistake young singers make is bringing too much weight in the chest voice up to higher notes. The chest voice by nature is heavier than the head. If you feel like you’re shout-singing, this is a good indication that you need to lighten the chest voice so that it isn’t damaged in the long-run.

 

INTERCHANGEABLE

Keep in mind that these two warm ups are interchangeable! Sometimes you’ll want to start with a top-to-bottom, and other times you’ll want to start bottom-to-top. It’ll largely depend upon a few different factors, like:

• the genre you’re singing
• the style you’re going for
• your voice type
• where you are in your vocal journey.

 

4. Articulators Wake-Up

Chances are, you’ve probably heard that tongue-twisters are good for vocal warm ups. There’s a good reason for this! They get the mouth moving, and wake up the articulators.

 

The articulators are:

• Tongue
• Teeth
• Lips
• Jaw

 

You don’t want to neglect warming up these parts of you, because they help your diction. 

 

Here are some examples:

• Denise sees the fleece, Denise sees the fleas. At least Denise could sneeze and feed and freeze the fleas.
• Where she sits she shines, and where she shines she sits.
• If Pickford’s packers packed a packet of crisps would the packet of crisps that Pickford’s packers packed survive for two and a half years?
• Wayne went to Wales to watch walruses.

There are more examples all over the internet. A quick google search will get you started in the right direction!

5. Variant

Last but not least, we have a variant warm up. This is what transitions you out of “vocal building” mode and into repertoire. 

 

A variant warm up can last for 10 seconds, or 30 minutes. There are two purposes behind this one:

1. It is goal-specific, meaning that you are tackling an issue that you want to work on, like singing higher, or chiaroscuro, balancing the bright and dark colors in your voice.
2. It acts as a very important transition, and bridges your warm up to your actual songs for the day to set you up for success.

 

If you think about it, this may be the most important warm-up you do for the day. This is what determines if your practice session or performance are going to be productive and accurately represent what you can do with your voice, or if it’s not going to feel like your best because you didn’t ease into it properly. 

 

Recap

So that about covers it for the outline! Each time you warm up, you’ll want to choose a:

•  Semi-occluded
• Descending
• Ascending
• Articulation
• Variant exercise.  

That sounds like a lot to remember, doesn’t it? How do you even know where to start, how to choose them? I have a couple tips that might help you out.

 

Tips for Success

1. 1. Create a Warm-Up Bank! This “choose your own adventure” format that reduces the friction for your routine. Once you have a decent list for each category, you won’t have to think up your routine every time – you can just follow what you have written down. 
   2. Consider tracking your warm ups. Even if it’s just for one or two weeks, it can give you valuable data on what works for your voice.

 

If you’re a Notion user, it’s super easy to add this into your Practice Log using tags, and then filtering these when you want to see patterns in the data.

 

3. Don’t be afraid to change up the length of your vocalizes. I mean this both in reps per exercise, and in overall length of time. Doing the same 45-minute warm up would be mundane, and over time, it would stop yielding the results you want. That is why, for me, the reason for doing these warm ups changes too. Sometimes, the purpose is to build. Sometimes, it’s just to maintain. Give yourself the grace to switch between these two modes, and know that they are BOTH helping you in the long run.

There you have it! What warm up is your favorite? Which tip did you find the most helpful? Feel free to send me an email with any questions you might have about the voice. Happy warming up!