Does your voice sound like this in the morning?
Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t.
But in any case, I will share with you a set of daily vocal warm ups after waking up so
that your voice feels alive and happy to go through the vocal demands of the day.
Stick around.
Hi!
I am Katarina, speech language pathologist from How 2 Improve Singing and here on this
channel, I share practical tips about using your voice in a healthy way.
So, if this is a topic that interests you, consider subscribing to this channel and hitting
that bell notification icon so that you don’t miss any of my videos.
So, let’s just get into it.
Here is a 7-step morning vocal routine for a better voice, which combines vocal, breathing,
movement and mind exercises.
Step 1 Steaming for voice The very first thing I do every morning when
I wake up is steaming.
I come downstairs to my kitchen and turn on the vocal steamer.
I admit I am not a morning person, so I am still half asleep the first few minutes after
waking up.
I prepare my steamer the night before, everything is laid out and ready for me to use as the
very first thing every morning.
Steaming gives me a chance to slowly wake up and provide my voice with some moist goodness
at the same time.
Steaming for 5 minutes is all it takes.
If you don’t have a vocal steamer, hot shower will do the same trick.
And because I have a busy household and I am pressed for time – especially in the
morning, I combine step 1 and 2.
What is step 2?
Step 2 Meditation for voice For the longest time, I was resisting meditation.
I am not a person who easily meditates.
I tried it a few times when I was younger and my mind just could not stay in one place
for a few minutes.
Meditation made me more frustrated than calm so I stopped trying until recently.
I tried a very short meditation during which I focus on my breath.
I started with one minute, then made it to 2 minutes and now I meditate 5 minutes while
steaming my voice.
When I use the steamer, I breathe the steam anyway so why not to do breathing meditation
at the same time, right?
Count the breaths or feel how the air enters and leaves your nose or mouth.
Feel how the hot and moist air hits your tongue and throat.
The time you spend on meditation does not have to be long – really, just 2 minutes
is all it takes to ground your mind and voice.
I mentioned meditation for your voice in my previous video about avoiding vocal strain.
And some of you commented on the great benefits you get from meditation for your voice and
beyond.
So, I really encourage you to try it and see for yourself how it affects your voice.
You may be surprised what you experience.
I know I was surprised myself!
Step 3 Breathing exercise Right after I focused on my breath during
a breathing meditation, it just makes sense to continue with another breathing exercise.
There are so many good breathing exercises that deepen your breath, wake up the breathing
muscles and increase awareness of all the breathing movements to provide a better support
for your voice.
Examples are hissing, suspending the breath, breathing on sh, releasing the abdomen, breathing
into your back and many more.
If you need more resources for breathing exercises, either check out this channel for more videos
on breathing or click this link to learn more.
And I will also leave some links to more resources in the description below.
Step 4 Dynamic stretches In the past, I used to do stretches for my
neck and shoulders, but the latest research tells us that stretching actually doesn’t
have many benefits to our muscles or performance.
There is even some research that goes as far as saying that static stretching may increase
the chances of hurting your muscles that are already shortened and weak.
In any case, dynamic stretches are different.
Dynamic stretches are sets of repetitive movements that take a joint or several joints through
a full range of motion.
They are meant to get your body moving, and that is what we need especially in the morning.
Dynamic stretches are also good for people who have a sedentary life style.
You can make your own set of dynamic stretches.
The main point is that you do several repetitions of the same movement going through the full
range of motion.
So, here are some examples that are beneficial for you voice: head rotations, head circles,
shoulder rolls, arm circles, opening and closing of your chest, hip rotations, spine rotations
and many more.
Spine rotations feel especially good for me.
Try one or two of these exercises in the morning and see what effect they have on your voice.
Now, moving onto vocal exercises.
Step 5 Humming Simple humming.
Simple but with focus and awareness.
Find a comfortable pitch and hum around that pitch while finding the best resonance and
clearest tone you can make at that time in the morning.
Move your jaw and tongue, play around with your voice and find that place in your voice
that feels the best.
Use the breath that you found in the previous steps.
Try to keep the tone stable not wavery or unsteady.
I know, it’s still morning so it may be challenging for some of us.
Once you have that ideal note, go up and down a semitone.
But as you land on the semitone up or down, again find the best resonance and tone as
you can for that particular pitch.
Move your jaw and tongue and engage your muscles of the face, use the breath as well as you
can.
Don’t move to another semitone if you have not found the best tone.
The point of this exercise is to find the best resonance with minimal vocal effort.
Once you found a good resonating sound, again move up or down a semitone.
Don’t rush through this process, take your time.
Become aware of the position of your vocal tract and all of the participating structures.
This is a very basic exercise but if you don’t have time to do any other vocal exercise,
this is the one you definitely want to do.
Step 6 Fricatives This is a type of an SOVT exercise or semi-occluded
vocal tract exercise.
Choose one voiced fricative, which is a sound that has a natural narrowing in the vocal
tract.
This narrowing helps vocal folds to work with optimal effort as the air pressure from this
narrowing is reflected back at the vocal folds.
This positively affects the way they vibrate, their shape and function.
Examples or voice fricatives are z as in zebra, zh as in measure, v as in vaccum, and th as
in this.
So, choose one voiced fricative and start at a comfortable pitch.
I am going to use th because it also releases the tongue.
Fricatives use a lot of air so make sure you are using the breathing muscles that you have
awaked in the previous steps.
Find a stable sound with a lot of vibrations in your face.
Then take the sound for a slide.
Focus on the stability of the tone, on an even airflow, on the resonance of the sound.
Don’t push as you ascend in pitch.
If you feel the need to push, stop and slide down instead.
Do several repetitions or try a few different fricatives.
Step 7 Vowels on Major Triads Our final step in waking up the voice is to
do vocal exercises on vowels.
Chose your favourite one, I am going to chose the vowel /i/ and I am going to vocalize on
major triads.
So, the pattern is 1, 3, 5, 3, 1 and repeated three times.
This exercise wakes up the range and slowly accesses both the lower and upper range and
moves your voice in small intervals.
Simple but effective.
Focus on the clarity of the vowel as you ascend in the range.
Focus on the resonance and ease of production.
You don’t want to push, you want to produce a sound with minimal effort but maximal efficiency.
And that is all for now.
I hope you liked this routine.
In the comments below, let me know what is your favourite part of your morning vocal
routine.
If you like this video, click the like button and share it with your singing friends who
may benefit from this information.
And check out the videos right here below.
I will see you soon. Bye.