Vocal Warm Ups: Building a Warm Up Routine

Guest post written by Camille Van Niekerk for 30 Day Singer and Guitar Tricks

You’re committed to improving your voice, and you’ve been told that you should warm it up before a voice acting project or singing. The best vocal warm ups can improve vocal quality, reduce muscle tension, develop vocal range and protect your voice from strain or injury.

In this article

1. First, Why Do I Need to Warm Up? 
2. Second, We Warm Up to Improve Our Vocal Technique!
3. What’s the Difference Between a Warm Up and a Vocal Exercise?
4. What’s the BEST Vocal Warm Up?
5. Alright, I’m Convinced. How Should I Get Started?
6. Does it Matter Which Order I Go In?
7. What Should I Be Focused On and How Do I Know if I’m Improving My Vocal Range?
8. Give Me My Vocal Warm Up Routine, Please!
9. Last Thought!

How should you warm up? Which vocal warm ups should you use? Why do you need warm ups in the first place?

Read on to get these questions answered and learn the steps to a thorough warm up routine!

First, Why Do I Need to Warm Up? 

Similar to a physical warm up before lifting weights or deep stretching, we warm up to prepare for singing or voice acting work and prevent injury.

A good warm up will do that by:

1. Establishing good posture and breath support. Vocal warm ups help with breath control, which is essential for strengthening the voice, preventing vocal strain, and improving vocal clarity and endurance.
2. Getting blood flow to the vocal folds
3. Gradually stretching the vocal folds. Warming up the vocal muscles is important to prevent strain, improve enunciation and release tension for a stronger speaking or singing voice.
4. “Placing” the voice (using your resonant space for beautiful tone and volume, rather than pushing)

Second, We Warm Up to Improve Our Vocal Technique!

Vocal exercises use a variety of vowel sounds and melodic patterns, so you develop stability and consistency throughout your range. Vocal warm up exercises help in developing an expressive tone by strengthening the speaking or singing voice and improving vocal health. Because you’re gradually moving up and down in pitch, warm ups will quickly expose weak spots in a way that songs or simply speaking can sometimes hide. Depending on your exercise choice, your vocal warm up exercises might be the most challenging part of your practice!

What’s the Difference Between a Warm Up and a Vocal Exercise?

Those terms are used interchangeably! The only real difference would be in their function: if it’s an exercise used to “wake up” and get your voice moving, we’d call it a vocal warmup. More challenging patterns that work on belting, large leaps or fast passages, we’d call vocal

What’s the BEST Vocal Warm Up?

Each voice actor, voice acting coach, singer and voice teacher probably has a different favorite. These exercises are essential for strengthening, protecting and improving the quality of one’s acting or singing voice. My personal all-around favorite is the lip trill (lip roll/lip bubble) because it’s great for activating the correct muscles for breath support, relaxing the face, finding balanced resonance, navigating over vocal breaks and helping the vocal folds keep vibrating together as they stretch.

That said, I’m also a big fan of the NG for exploring high-head voice, the dopey MUM for stabilizing the larynx and opening the throat and exercises beginning with a G or B to train cord compression.

Each exercise has a different function; it’s important to know what that function is so that if a specific syllable or pattern isn’t helping you achieve that goal, you’ll find one that does! For example, if the goal is maintaining a lifted soft palate and an exercise uses the UH vowel, but it’s easier for you to keep your palate lifted with an AH vowel, you can modify it!

When it comes to warm ups, they’re just syllables and melodic patterns in different combinations. There’s no magic combo, but you’ll probably find some favorites!

Alright, I’m Convinced. How Should I Get Started?

Here are a few tips BEFORE you start!

1. Find a space to practice that gives you some privacy, room to move around and (ideally) a little reverb/echo.
2. Build the habit of practicing in a standing position.
3. Commit to a little bit each day (5-10 minutes) and keep going for a longer session if you’re feeling good!

It’s crucial to practice vocal warm ups to maintain good vocal health, protect your voice, relax vocal muscles, and improve your range and breathing.

Does it Matter Which Order I Go In?

Yes! Always start with a gentle vocal warm up routine to stretch out the cords and get your voice moving. Save more challenging exercises (ie: belting) for later in your warm up!

What Should I Be Focused On and How Do I Know if I’m Improving My Vocal Range?

For each and every exercise in your warm up, always prioritize good posture, low relaxed breathing and freedom (feeling good while you sing). Taking care of your vocal cords is crucial to strengthen your voice, prevent strain and protect the delicate muscles. If that’s happening, you’re on the right track! But if you come out of alignment, forget to breathe well or start to feel pain and strain, stop! Then see if you can reset, modify the warm up or try again later. If it’s a range issue (as in, a note is way too high or too low), you can always drop out and rejoin when you’re able!

Give Me My Vocal Warm Up Routine, Please!

This is a sample routine of warm up exercises you can modify, depending on your goals and timeframe on any given day!

1. Breathe deeply, relaxing your belly so the belly, ribs and back expand with your breath.
2. Stretch out your neck, jaw, face, sides, etc.
3. Activate your breath support muscles with a hiss exercise.
4. Begin vocalizing on something easy to start stretching out the cords: lip roll, HM (hum) or NN.
5. Sing on an easy, relaxed OO vowel to work on good, consistent resonance throughout your range.
6. Open up to an AH, YAH, UH, or YUH to relax the jaw down and lift the soft palate.
7. Train healthy cord compression: use syllables that begin with a G or B and/or work on achieving a balanced onset (starting the sound with a vowel, careful to not begin with excess air or a glottal attack).
8. Get into mix voice with an NG, NYAH, NAY, MUM or BUH.
9. Work on agility with exercises that cover a wide range, focusing on pitch accuracy and vowel modification (as needed).
10. Exercise your belt/high chest voice with a NO or HEY exercise, being sure to keep the throat and face relaxed, supporting the low body.
11. Warm down: If you spent quite a bit of time working out, warm down with a gentle hum or lip trill.

Last Thought!

If you have very limited time, just visit the basics: stretch and breathe, warm up on a lip trill or easy syllable, and say or sing something that makes you happy! It’s crucial to take care of your vocal cords to ensure they remain healthy and strong.