Jacob K Hajjar 42 Farrwood Drive Haverhill, MA 01835 T: 978-596-6314 E: jacob.k.hajjar@gmail.com 6 May, 2014 JH

Applied Voice 8 Panel Presentation: The Essential Warm-Up

Prelude: Why Warm-Up?

o Mental: To enforce important concepts and engage musical thinking. To encourage unity in a choir

setting.

o Physical: Your voice has muscles too! Warm-ups awaken the muscles and get the blood flowing to the

laryngeal system.

o Technical: Practice for all technical aspects of singing, and to expand range and explore tone colors.

Also an ideal time for the teacher to correct any technical faults or target problematic areas of the voice

for improvement.

Warm-Up #1: The McClosky Relaxation Exercises

Taken and modified from “Your Voice at Its Best, Fifth Edition” by David Blair McClosky, Waveland Press 2011

1. The Face: Using the pads of your fingers, massage the facial muscles beginning at the hairline and continuing

down to your lips and chin. Use circular motions with both hands, and strive for complete relaxation of your face

so that there is as little tension as possible.

2. The Tongue: Begin by stretching your tongue out of your mouth and downward, feeling a stretch in the back of the

tongue but not overextending as to cause injury. Next, release the tongue and allow it to relax on the tip of the

teeth, with absolutely no tension, especially in the back of the tongue as it extends downward into the throat.

3. The Suprahyoid (Swallowing) Muscles: These muscles are located under the chin. Use both thumbs to make a

gentle up and down motion and massage the entire area under the chin, using the chin and jaw bones as a

boundary. This action is similar to gently kneading bread. These muscles should remain soft and malleable.

4. The Jaw: Find the temporomandibular joint (TMJ, or jaw hinge) located in front of the ears. Gently open and close

your jaw while massaging these joints with your index fingers in a circular motion. Next, hold your chin between

your thumbs and index fingers and move the jaw up and down, letting your hands do all of the work while the jaw

remains relaxed. The jaw should have no tension and should be slack.

5. The Larynx: I would recommend skipping this exercise with younger singers. Using the thumb, middle, and index

fingers of one hand, grasp your larynx and gently move it side to side. When fully relaxed, the larynx should move

easily and without clicking.

The Essential Warm-Up 2

6. The Neck, Head, and Shoulders: Allow your head to drop forward with your chin resting on your chest, and feel

the pull through your neck and back. There is no need to use your hands to pull your head further down, as this

can lead to injury. Instead, allow gravity to lengthen the muscles of the neck and allow the head to drop even

further on its own. Next, raise your head up so that it balances gently on your neck and begin to roll your

shoulders forward and then back, striving for total relaxation. Shoulders are a particular problem with tension for a

majority of students who carry heavy backpacks throughout the day.

*These exercises are best completed in order, with each following exercise maintaining the relaxed state from the

previous exercises.

Goal: To teach complete relaxation and freedom of movement in the physical structure used for singing. It is important

that singing occurs in a state of complete relaxation so that the vice may occur naturally and with freedom.

Warm-Up #2: Deep Breathing

1. Inhale deeply from the diaphragm while moving your hands inward, down, and outward following the path of

breath and expansion.

2. Exhale comfortably while moving your hands inward, up, and outward following the path of breath and release.

3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 continuously. Your hands should be following an hourglass shaped path.

4. While doing this exercise, try to focus on nothing but the path of your breathing and hands and the feeling of

expansion and release. This is a meditative exercise that clears the mind.

Goal: To clear the mind of any negativity that would interfere with singing. Just as tension in the body creates an obstacle

for the voice, so does tension in the mind. This also enforces a proper diaphragmatic breathing technique.

Warm-Up #3: Buzzy Hum

1. Hum freely and low in your range, experimenting with your resonant space by moving your jaw to find where the

most resonant (“buzzy”) hum is.

2. Use this buzzy hum and gently hum up a whole step and back down four times on “mm.”

3. Hum up and down a triad (use major and minor interchangeably) twice.

4. Hum stepwise up and down a scale (again using major and minor interchangeably) to the fifth degree once.

5. Repeat steps 2-4 multiple times, moving up a half step each time and changing the hum to “nn” and then “ng.”

You can also use syllables such as “nee-noh”, “mah-moo,” etc.

The Essential Warm-Up 3

Goal: Building a resonant and free sound. The voice should be relaxed throughout this exercise, and the sound should

always be free, open, and forward.

Warm-Up #4: Improvisation

Lesson Setting

Play a chord progression that is similar to one in a song

you are working on and improvise freely over it. Use any

vocalizations that come naturally. This is a great way to

introduce uncommon or modal progressions into your ear.

Choral Setting

Give the group an emotion to convey through sound and

ask them to close their eyes and vocalize the emotion. A

fun add-on to this is to divide the choir in half and have

them guess which emotion the other half is conveying.

Goal: Getting familiar with improvisation and creating a safe space to ease the apprehension that may be associated with

it. In a choral setting this also beings to develop independent musical thinking and solo singing within the safety of a

group.

Warm-Up #5: Just for Fun!

This type of warm-up is most appropriate for a young choir, but could be applied to a lesson setting or to an older student

with a good sense of humor.

1. Find or write some silly text that makes use of alliteration or is a tongue-twister.

2. Put this text to fast music and repeat either ascending or descending by half step each time.

My go-to option is “Chester Cheetah”

Goal: This type of warm-up creates a relaxing atmosphere and eases tension. Getting a little silly can make students

more comfortable and more likely to be okay with making mistakes. The tongue-twister aspect also warms up the

articulators and the brain to be more aware of diction. These usually become very popular and memorable with young

students.