"Game Changer" by Elena Goodrow
An athlete needs to warm up their body for a big game, just as a singer needs to warm up their voice before a performance. However, there is something I’ve learned recently. Warm ups are important to do every single day, not just before a performance. Implementing vocal warm ups into my everyday life has been a game-changer for me, and I would love to share my experience with you all.
I have been doing vocal lessons with sINgSPIRE for 6 years now, and prior to that I was taking vocal lessons elsewhere in addition to doing musical theater for 10 years. Since I was 5 years old I’ve been learning how to be the best singer and the best performer I can be. The amazing thing about singing is that no matter how long you've done it you still learn new things all of the time. I was taught about the importance of vocal warm ups when I first started musical theater, which was 14 years ago. But here I am in the present just now finding out that warm ups should be done every day regardless of whether or not you will be singing. Even though you might not sing or perform on a given day, you will most definitely be speaking. Especially if you work a customer service job, like me. I’m a barista so for the first 6-8 hours of every day I’m talking to customers nonstop. Then, on most days I get off work and immediately jump into working on music or preparing for a gig. That is a lot of strain for anyone’s voice.
Singing isn’t the only thing that can tire out your voice, a day full of talking needs a warm up too! I really started to feel my voice growing more and more tired after weeks of this routine of getting up at 6am, talking to people for 8 hours straight, and then going home and singing for another couple of hours. Then on the weekends I’d be singing for a few hours at night for a performance too. One day I felt like there was a large marble sitting in the middle of my throat. It hurt to swallow, it hurt to speak, and it definitely hurt to sing. It was scary, I didn’t know what was happening.
With the help of my sINgSPIRE coach, Ashley, we realized my voice was just really tired from overuse. First I practiced finding times in my day to be silent. I’m the kind of person that talks to myself and sings constantly, so this was a difficult task. Nonetheless, I was able to decrease the amount of unnecessary talking/singing I was doing and instead use that time to rest my voice.
The next step was learning some quick warm ups to do on a daily basis. These daily warm ups don’t have to take any longer than 5 minutes, and you can fit them into your morning in whatever way works best for you. For me, I have a 10 minute drive to work each morning. This is the perfect time for a warm up, I simply take a few minutes to get my voice ready for the day and it makes a very noticeable difference. Simply from implementing that one new habit, my voice has felt stronger throughout the entire day. It doesn’t get tired as easily, I feel more confident while I sing, and I feel more comfortable in my own body. It’s incredible to see how one small change makes several big differences. Everybody will have different warm ups that work best for them, and I always change it up to keep things interesting. Here are a few examples of things I might do while I’m driving to work:
I take some slow deep breaths to wake up my lungs and my diaphragm in order to begin my warm up.
Then I shuffle a playlist on my phone and whatever song comes on, I hum or lip buzz along to the melody. This helps loosen up my voice. After I hum/lip buzz to the first half of the song, I invite my voice to vocalize to the song. I don’t sing the words, but I use vowel sounds to stretch out my voice even more to prepare it for singing harder consonants. I feel the sound flow through my soft palate/roof of my mouth, I engage my diaphragm, I relax my muscles, and let the sound carry me.
Once the song ends, I transition into doing more percussive sounds. I say sounds like “bop” or “key” to engage different parts of the mouth such as my lips and tongue.
I try to keep it different each day and I experiment with different types of warm ups. This helps me not to get bored with it, and it helps challenge my voice.
I invite you to try out doing daily vocal warm ups, even if you don’t consider yourself to be a singer! Warm ups are helpful to everybody. They strengthen your body and your voice in order to prepare it for whatever the day brings.
Find some helpful warmups and other tips from other fellow sINgSPIRE singers at www.breathebravely.org/ising