Caring for and Warming Up Your Voice

Your voice and ability to sing are a gift from God. Therefore we want to look after them and be responsible with them.

• DRINK PLENTY OF WATER

  This is good for you to do at all times, but is vital when singing. Part of preparing your voice for singing is also what you eat and drink before singing. Caffeine dries up your mucus and dairy products create thick mucus. I wouldn’t recommend having either of these within an hour of singing. (If you have a sore throat be careful what throat sweets you have. Some of them numb your throat, this can be dangerous as it then feels better but it actually isn’t.)

• CORRECT BREATHING

Make sure you’re breathing from your diaphragm (so your tummy will go out instead of your shoulders going up!). You can put your hands round your waste and take a couple of deep breaths to feel it expand.

A good exercise for this is 'The Pressure Cooker'

• Breath out all excess air.
• Take a deep breath over four counts. Make sure you breathe in to the diaphragm, fill up from the bottom!
• Then let out the breath, with a ‘Ssssss’ sound, as little as possible but a consistent amount. Do this until there’s no more breath left! Feel the pressure!
• WARM UPS

Your vocal chords, or vocal folds, are two very delicate pieces of tissue, encased in cartilage for protection. As the air rushes through them they vibrate: slow vibrations for low notes and faster for higher notes. Try singing scales and half scales using different vowel sounds to warm up your facial muscles as well as your voice