It is so easy to say something like “warm-up your voice before you sing”, or “don’t sing without warming up”, but honestly, how many of us find ourselves singing without warming up first?
At Nightingale Music Studio, located in Bountiful Utah, I make it a clear point to give you everything you need to warm-up your voice. I provide lesson notes catered to where each student is at currently and detailed descriptions of what warm-ups they are working on. On the student portal you can find videos and recordings of every warm-up I have ever assigned. In theory, warming up couldn’t be easier.
Or could it?
The truth is, I could prescribe you every warm-up exercise known to man, and have recordings of every exercise in existence available to you and at your fingertips but if you never look at the notes, and you never open the recording it really doesn’t do you any good.
One of the greatest challenges when it comes to warming up your voice isn’t necessarily what to warm-up but rather when to warm-up. While there are definitely specific circumstances and events that you should always warm-up for, they don’t necessarily happen on a daily basis and warming up your voice on a daily basis is where the magic happens.
Events you should always warm-up for:
- Auditions
- Performances
- Voice Lessons
- Rehearsals
See what I mean? The average person is not going to be auditioning or giving a performance every day. So why warm-up everyday? The answer, because warming up your voice and practicing techniques everyday is the ONLY way to build the habit of healthy singing and get your voice from “meh” to “WOW!”
There are two ways that you can fit warm-ups into your day.
Option #1 is to schedule a specific time everyday to practice your voice and include warm-ups as a part of that time. This can be putting in your calendar that you will practice your voice at 9am every morning, or it could be placing your practice time in-between tasks you already have to do. For example after breakfast but before you brush your teeth.
Option #2 is to stack warm-ups with a task you already have to do. For example, I used to do my warm-ups in the shower. I know another singer who likes to do her warm-ups while she does the dishes. Basically just think of a relatively passive chore or task that you have to do everyday and add warming-up to that task
However you choose to get those warm-ups in everyday, make sure that you don’t get too caught up in doing them “perfectly” every time and that you focus more on just doing them. The more you practice overtime, the better and better the practice becomes, but you have to START first.
When do you warm-up your voice?
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