Exercises- A typical singing lesson: Warm-ups

This is the structure of a extended singing lesson that I would have, usually in one half-hour lesson I wouldn't necessarily do all of these technical exercises but it gives you an idea of what I do during them;


Gentle physical warm-ups:

• If I were a bit cold maybe just a bit of jumping about would loosen me up and warm me up. As well as warming your voice up , being physically warm is essential  as it  helps to maintain the correct posture which is vital for getting the best result from your voice.
• I'd swing my arms about and roll my shoulders this gets rid of any tension in the upper back or the shoulders which can cause you to tense up whist signing which can sometimes cause a strained sound. 
• Then I would warm-up my facial muscles, for example a chewing action stretches the cheeks and the lips. I would stretch and relax my mouth into different shapes which warms up all the muscles in the face It is important to also stretch the tongue as well, this really helps with annunciation and helps you to pronounce everything clearly and this aids for a better performance. 
• Also, when singing it is important to ensure you are opening your mouth as wide as possible and also making sure that you smile or shape your mouth correctly. This produces a much lighter sound and it improves the look of your mouth when you sing. Also, a smile adds to your stage performance. 

Breathing exercises:

• Breathing is one of the fundamental skills in singing. If you do not have correct control over your breathing it can completely ruin a performance and every professional singer will have learnt how to control their breathing and learnt to breathe correctly. 
• To practice proper breathing you must first learn to breathe with your diaphragm. Breathing technique is to fill your lungs and expand into your stomach and expand your diaphragm not your chest and shoulders. This enable you to take longer breaths and to also support the notes when you sing especially when attempting very high notes and this allows you to not strain your voice. 
• Correct posture should be maintained to allow the diaphragm to expand properly and this also enables you to expand more of your lungs when your back is straight and your shoulders are back and relaxed. 
• When I first began singing lessons I would often find it difficult to breathe this way but you soon learn and it becomes natural. However, sometimes I do have to remind myself to hold correct posture. I notice a great difference between when I slouch and when I stand straight. 
• An exercise that I do for breathing is to breathe in for four counts, then hold the breath for four making sure that my shoulders are relaxed then breathe out for four counts and hold for four. Then I would repeat the process but with five counts, then six, seven and in my singing lessons I have manage to expand my time to 10 counts. The purpose of this exercise is to build up the amount of breath you can take in and the length of time you can hold your breath.  

Vocal warm-ups:

• Firstly I would do a few lip trills and some sirens (going from one note up the octave and back down with various noises) this warms up the lips and also the voice. 
• I would sing a few scales with different noises sounds. One sound would be a 'gug' sound to stretch and warm up the soft palate. Then other sounds such as 'may' or 'mi' to work the different muscles of the mouth and voice. 
• My teacher would play a small melody then would get me to repeat it to her, we would work up piano  and back down and this allows me to work on my range. 
• One exercise my teacher has me do is to make a whiny sound right at the front of my mouth and nose and then siren it up an octave. This nasal sound works the muscles and then relaxes them so I don't produce a nasal sound when I sing. 
• Then we would practice some intervals. This is when you sing the third or the fifth above the note played. Then my teacher would play two notes and I would have to tell her which note was the root note. Then some scales using the intervals. This all helps with some of the theory aspects of singing. 
• When I was taking a singing exam one of the exercises was a rhythm exercise. There was a few lines of lyrics and they would have to be sung the exact way the rhythm was set out. 

There are many way to warm-up and if I were singing a song that was particularly high or very low then we would do exercise working on the high end of my range and the low end too.