Vocal Exercises

Every practice session should begin with some vocal exercises so that you can warm up your voice. If you are planning to practice for thirty minutes you should spend half of the time doing vocal exercises and half the time to study particular songs.

The main reason you have to do vocal exercises is because the vocal cords are actually muscles that extend from the front to the back of the throat and you need to learn to co-ordinate them and the other muscles in the voice box with the air stream.

The aim of voice exercises is to learn how to adjust pitch, volume and tone quality. Vocal exercises increase blood circulation, flexibility and responsiveness this helps your singing and can be transferred to the songs that you are singing.

You need to also realize that the body plays an important role in the singing process.

The body part that is most important in singing and in vocal exercises is the Larynx.

In vertical length the Larynx measures approximately one and a half inches and the measure of the circumference is about five inches. The Larynx too is made up of two major cartilages – the cricoid and the thyroid. The cricoid is actually a specialized cartilage ring at the upper end of the windpipe.

The thyroid –otherwise known as the Adam’s apple- is shaped like a v. The vocal cords attach to the thyroid cartilage in the front, stretch backwards across the path to the air stream, and attach to two small pyramid shaped cartilages in the back of the throat.

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In all, there are five groups of muscles in the Larynx including that of the vocal cords and ten cartilages. It is important to understand the parts and function of the Larynx because this will be the primary tool you are using when you are doing vocal exercises.

Now lets put vocalization into practice with some vocal exercises. The thing with vocal exercises is that once you have the knowledge base you will be able to devise literally thousands of vocal exercises.

However, if you are just beginning to learn how to sing it is advised that you follow a set number of exercises for beginners and then as you become a stronger singer work with some more advanced exercises. Again, it is important that you work on voice exercises for at least fifteen minutes before practicing any songs.

Here are three vocal exercises to practice with to begin with.

1. Silently yawn the throat open, and at the beginning stage of the yawn, quietly slide from your highest comfortable pitch to your lowest comfortable pitch on the vowel oh or ah. Using a small mirror or small torch to help you see the movement in your throat. You need to make sure your tongue remains completely still. Repeat.

2. Begin a yawn; quietly slide from your lowest comfortable pitch to your highest comfortable pitch, then back down to your lowest comfortable pitch. Repeat.

3. To clarify more fully the tongue positions required for the different vowels, sing the following vowel series on a single pitch. The vowels should be sung with low jaw and high palate and should seem to “melt’’ into one another. The tip of the tongue should be in approximately the same place for the ee and ay vowels (ee ay ah oh oo ).

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