Hey singers, are you ready to practice? This is a great guide to use. You can do these exercises each time you practice or you could even do some of these exercises if you have a performance and you want to make sure that you are warmed up.
Let's get started! Make sure that you are in a quiet place with little distractions. There are a few basic things for us to go through. Do you have a mirror handy so you can see yourself and make sure that you have good posture and technique? Do you have a bottle of water? Great!
Make sure that you have good posture throughout this vocal practice session, and all your lessons in general. No one expects you to stand perfectly straight the whole time you sing, that would make you appear stiff and uncomfortable. Just be sure that you have no tension in your muscles and that your voice has room to move around. Stand with your feet shoulder width apart and take a few seconds to roll your head around to ease any tension in your neck. Remember that you want to keep your body aligned.
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Basic Breathing Exercises
The Inhale:
Take a good singing breath. Make sure it is a deep, low breath while imagining your tummy is a balloon filling with air. Go slowly imagining that you are filling that balloon with air. When the baloon is full, you will begin to exhale slowly through your mouth
The Exhale:
Be careful not to let your muscles tighten. Do not force the air out, let it seep out as though you are slowly letting a balloon deflate.
Do these exercises 5 times each.
The Snake Exercise:
Now inhale again slowly and exhale on ssssssss releasing the smallest amount of air possible. Try to allow yourself to exhale for 30 seconds, or even more.
Do this exercise 3 times each.
The Cake Exercise:
Now take another good inhale, imagine that you are facing a cake with 10 candles on it, blow each candle out one by one. Take a small pause between each candle.
Do this exericse 2 times.
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Vocal Warm-Ups
Here are some quick vocal warm ups for you to start with. These are great if you are in a hurry and you need to warm up your voice. Remember, in your lesson, your teacher gives you warm ups that are specifially for your voice and your individual needs, so you will want to do them too. OK, let's get started. You will either need a piano (and someone who knows how to play it) or a recording of simple 5 note scales (whole steps) going up the piano and then back down the piano.
Also make sure that you know your basic vowel sounds:
ee, ay, ah, oh, oo.
Take a good breath and start with 5 note scales, up and down the piano on ah. Try about 2 1/2 octaves on the piano.
Then you can do each vowel e ay, ah, oh and oo.
Also, on 5 note scales you can do lip trills up and down the piano.
You can also try 5 note scales down the piano singing me, may, mah, mo, moo.
If you aren't sure how to do these exercises, ask your teacher to show you so you can do them at home.
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Song Study
Now you can work on your piece of music or a song. A great way to learn a song is to read through the lyrics first. Make sure to notice how you are phrasing the lyrics because you will want to try to phrase them the same way when you are singing. Also, take note of what the piece is about so you can think about how you are singing and the charachter who is singing the lyrics.
After you are done reading the lyrics, try singing them on AH. This is a great way to work on a song because it enables you to really understand the music, phrasing and breathing. Now try singing the song paying careful attention to phrasing.
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