Monday, July 5, 2010

Vocal scales warm up

I already wrote about performance and its place in music, so its time for some technique tips in performing. Let’s talk about vocal scales warm up. It’s really important thing for singers, because our vocal muscles working like other muscles on body. So we need to relax those muscles and prepare them for performing.

Here’s my favorite exercises:

- Humming. Close mouth and make sound “M” on the scale. You can start on the middle “C” an go up or down of scale. Here’s the video example:



- Lip rolls. With closed mouth you need to move your lips, so they create a interesting sound, something like motor on a boat. Example shown by Rock The Stage NYC:


- Vocal vowels. There can be so many variations of vowels, so I recommend to start with “A”, “O” or “Ma”, “Ga”. Just move up or down a scale with that vowels but only in comfort areas for you. Don’t go too high or too low, because you can damage your vocal cords. Here’s example for a different kinds of vowels, Hayley from Paramore with vocal teacher Brett Manning: