HILLSONG

LIVERPOOL

SINGERS

WARM-UPS

Hi Singers,

To help you individually and collectively get into and stay in tip-top shape vocally, warm-ups are your best friend so I’ve put a little collection together for you in response to conversations we’ve had!

We will be getting into the swing of warming up together before rehearsals using these and you are welcome to use them for practising at home too.

If you have any questions on how to use them or for anything else about how to look after your voice please message or speak to me.

Happy, healthy singing!

~ Josephine

SINGERS WARM-UPS:
Approx. 10-mins AM / 5-mins PM

(1) BODY - move around to energise, then stretch to free areas of body (knees, hips, back, shoulders, neck, jaw, tongue), set up good neck alignment (avoiding head jutting forward).

(2) BREATH - aim for your lower belly to release out to allow your breath in, then use a buzzy-sounding ‘zzz/vvv/thh’ on low long notes out feeling the lower belly pulling in gradually. Work on the shoulders/upper chest staying relaxed. You can do this freely or try the track below:

(3) VOICE - do an SOVT exercise and then an open-sound scale. On these warm-ups the aim is ‘flow phonation’ where the sound is neither breathy or pressed but nicely balanced with a clean tone and smooth transitions from chest to head voice and back.

(a) Do some SOVT slides (as above with the breath in and support) on lip trill/puffy cheeks/straw, gradually extending out from low/speech range to cover a wide range of the voice, breathing quite often. Check neck alignment and support as above. You can slide about freely a cappella or use a track below:

(b) Then pick one of the scales below and follow it through, starting nice and low. The male voices will start first and female voices will join in after a few times round, making sure everyone is in the same octave (starting low and speech-like).

Here are some ideas of sounds to go for depending on the time of day:

AM - dopey ‘goo/bub’ up, whiny bright ‘nyah/wer’ down
PM - neutral ‘ba’ up, whingy ‘yeah’ down (or any AM options)

Bonus… if you want to then explore extended upper range and agility. Try the following on a long bright ‘nah——’ or short ‘wer, wer…’.

(4) WORDS - use a short tongue twister that you know or pick a tricky line from a song, starting to repeat it together in rhythm slowly and making sure the consonants and words stay really clear as you speed up. eg. “The tip of the tongue and the teeth and the lips”.

Bonus… if you get time, work on VOCAL BLEND. Pick a section of a song from the setlist to work on blend by singing a cappella together. Work to tighten up your timings coming off notes together, and adjust your tone colour, vowel shaping and dynamics to blend better. Match to the WL (who should match timings/melody closely to the original recording). The aim is to SOUND AS ONE.

That’s a wrap! You’re ready to sing.

PS- COOL DOWN after singing by taking 1-minute to do some simple hums/SOVTs sliding high to low, starting lower each time to bring the voice back to speaking/low range. You can fall into vocal fry at the bottom of the slides (as long as it’s not squeezy in your throat). Cool downs help your voice recover and not feel fatigued the next day!