Vocal Warm-Ups with Piano
Introduction
Your vocal cords are muscles, just like the ones you use for walking and running every day. Would you run a marathon without doing some warm-ups first?
Having a vocal warm-up routine will not only improve your performance, but also prevent damaging your voice in the long run; it’s a practice that will allow you to do what you love for decades to come.
In this article, we’ll go over the most common warm-up exercises for singers, focusing on how you can accompany these practice sessions with the piano to make them more effective.
Why Warming Up is Important
Just like with any physical activity, warming up can improve your performance as well as prevent injuries. When practiced regularly, singing warm-ups can help you expand your vocal range and reduce muscle and vocal tension.
Singing is tiring and physically demanding: a singer can burn hundreds of calories while on stage, which is why good preparation is critical. Knowing how to breathe, preserve energy, and “stretch” your vocal cords before a performance are all crucial aspects of a singer’s life, and should be treated as such.
The Best Vocal Warm Ups with Piano
Humming
This is how you should start your daily warm-up. Humming on a piano scale is a gentle way to wake up your voice while practicing scales.
Place your tongue behind your bottom teeth, close your lips, and hum “hmmm.” Play a five-note or octave scale on the piano and follow each note with your hum.
The piano helps you stay on pitch while gradually extending your range. Focus on the vibrations in your face and chest: this warm-up is the best way to reduce tension and strengthen resonance. There’s a reason why singers of all levels use this warm-up daily!
Jaw Loosening Exercise
A tight jaw can block your voice and prevent it from achieving its full potential, so take some time to release muscle tension before performing.
Massage the joint near your ears and gently drop your jaw as if you were yawning. After that, play single notes or short scales on the piano and sing them with an open mouth.
Use the piano to keep your voice aligned with pitch, but make sure you focus on relaxing your jaw: after a couple of minutes, singing should become more effortless and controlled.
Two-Octave Pitch Glide Warm-Up
This is a tricky exercise, but great if you want to connect chest and head voice.
Choose a starting note on the piano and glide up two octaves on an “ee” or “oh” sound, then slide back down. Let the piano notes guide you and keep your transitions smooth.
This warm-up is fantastic to stretch your vocal skills across their full range. Instead of pushing hard, focus on maintaining a steady breath and listening to the pitch provided by the piano.
Yawn-sigh Technique
Here’s another classic for releasing vocal tension.
Start by inhaling like a yawn, then exhale with a relaxed sigh. Meanwhile, play simple scales on the piano and sigh gently into those tones.
Adding the piano encourages you to control airflow while staying in key. Just a few minutes of yawn-sighing with piano support can reset your voice and prepare it for your performance.
Lip Trilling
Lip trills are a great way to build and control breath: it’s an engaging and dynamic exercise for those who want to improve both vocal flexibility and stamina.
Relax your lips, blow air until they vibrate, and then play ascending and descending scales on the piano, which you can follow along.
Lip trilling also reduces vocal tension, which is why it’s one of the most common warm-ups professional singers use before going on stage.
Vowel Sounds
Finally, an exercise to improve tone and articulation.
Play a scale or arpeggio on the piano and sing each note on vowels like “Ah, Eh, Ee, Oh, Ooh.” Focus on maintaining consistent vowel shapes while moving smoothly between pitches.
Here, the piano keeps your intonation steady and helps you hear how vowels change resonance across your range. Try combining vowels in sequences, while paying attention to diction and breath control.
Practice Vocal Warm-Ups Daily
Consistency is key. These exercises will only help you if you practice daily, or at least three times a week: this is the only way to stretch your vocal cords, expand your range, and keep your voice in great shape.
It’s better to practice 5 minutes every day than just once a week for an hour, so dedicate a few minutes of your time every day to hone your vocal skills, and use a combination of exercises we discussed today to make the most of the available time you have.
Remember to Cool Down
After you’ve finished singing (whether you performed on stage or just finished a rehearsal), it’s important to cool your voice down.
You can reuse the same exercises from your warm-up. Start with the stronger ones and end with the gentler ones, gradually stretching your vocal cords to ensure they recover after a performance.
Even a few minutes of humming while driving back home can help you keep your voice healthy and ready for the next time you sing.
A proper warm-up is the first step to becoming a proficient singer, and here at Sing Theory we designed classes that aim to teach you all the essential elements of music theory, while unlocking the full potential of your vocal range. From private theory lessons to in-depth tutorials, we want to provide you with everything you need to become a professional singer.
Get in touch today to take your singing to the next level!