September 1, 2010
Warm Up Exercises
Just as athletes need to complete warm up exercises prior to a race or a game, singers need to prepare their voices ahead of a rehearsal or show. Singing warm up exercises get the air flowing and relaxes your muscles to prepare for the harder strenuous activity to come. This is perhaps the best method to avoid vocal weakness and overuse damage.
It may seem counterintuitive–more exercises to prevent overuse injury? Yes. Your vocal folds are controlled through tiny muscle groups, and when they’re warmed-up they are more adaptable, a lot easier to utilize, and less vulnerable to injury.
Before starting your singing warm up exercises, carry out some whole-body stretching and relaxation. hang down for one more minute or so. A good exercise to begin with is the "rag doll". Stand upright bending forward from your hips. Then allow your arms and head to droop and dangle for a little while.}Follow that with a stretching exercise for proper posture alignment. Stand together with your feet flat on the ground, about hip-width apart, and your arms at your sides. Bring your arms quickly up and across your chest in a circular fashion until they are above your head. Now up onto your tiptoes, breath in deeply and continue to move your arms up. As you slowly exhale, bring your arms back down to your sides and come back down to flat feet. Make sure to keep your chest up and shoulders back, as they were at the top of the stretch, after bringing your arms down. You are now ready to start singing.
The first singing warm up exercise uses a technique that goes by various names: buzz, bubble lips, lip roll, or lip trill. Breathe out through puckered lips to produce a vibration, sounding quite like a speedboat or a "raspberry".
You will do the buzz slide {between three tones: the base tone, up a fourth, and back to the base (do-fa-do): within the key of C major, it would be C,F,C. Repeat, moving up a half step each instance (C, F, C, then D,G,D, then Eb, Ab, Eb, etc.). You can also do this on the syllable "ee" or "oo", but the buzz forces you to use good breath support.~The buzz slide will be done amid three tones: the bass tone, which is up a fourth, and then back to the base. (do fa do) so in C major the notes would be C, F and C. You need to repeat this and then move up a semi-tone each time. Do this as well with the syllables "oo" and "ee" but the buzzing technique makes for you to use great breath support.}The next singing warm up exercise is the fifth-slide. Start on the fifth tone with the syllable "wee" and slide downward to the base (so-do): in C major again, it would be G, C. Do again on the same tones with "zoo", then move up a half-step and do again, "wee" and "zoo" on Ab and Db. Remain moving up by half-steps.
Next is the five-tone descending scale. Beginning on the fifth tone, descend stepwise to the base: so, fa, mi, re, do. Firstly do the syllable "na", then "nay", "noh", and "noo". Go up a half-step and do again the scale on each syllable.
The fourth singing warm up exercise is a descending 8-tone scale (do, ti, la, so, fa, mi, re, do) on the syllable "noo". All over again, move up a half-step with each repeat. You can in addition try further vowel sounds, such as "nah", "nay", "nee", or "noh", or use "m" as an alternative of "n" as the initial consonant. Try to feel your mask, or higher resonance, as you perform this.
Chase that with a descending arpeggio: do, so, mi, do, on the syllable "nah". Say again on "nay", "nee", "noh", and "noo", afterward move up by half measures and repeat on each syllable over again.
The final singing warm up exercise is the octave slide. Use the buzz and start on the base note; slide up an octave and back down to the base: do, do, do. Repeat on "oo". Shift up a half-step, execute the buzz, and followed by "oo". Go on with moving up by half-steps.
Filed under Hip Hop Dance Classes by Norman