In this video
Hannah explains the stages of physical warm up and preparation necessary before singing. This is everything involved in the body before warming up the vocal cords.
Lessons aims
Understand how the body should be warmed up in order to avoid strains and to be ready to sing
Practice fun and useful warm up methods and techniques, which help fully prepare key areas of the body before singing
Exercise 1 - Body warm up
Practice adjusting posture by rolling back the shoulders and pushing the chest out
Do slow and controlled side-to-side neck rolls that help stretch the muscles out
Use our knuckles to lightly massage the jaw and to loosen up jaw retention and release stress build up
Exercise 2 - Chewing the toffee!
This exercise is a fun way to get the jaw loosened up and ready for the range of motion used when singing
Start by imagining you are chewing a 'big toffee' and let the exaggerated motion of this help warm up the muscle
Switch to a 'little toffee'. With a different chewing motion other muscles in the jaw get warmed up
By switching between these a few more times we will have the full jaw workout!
Exercise 3 - The 'Jail bar rattle'
Pretend to hold the 'jail bars' or clasp your hands together
Try keep some tension in your arms but loosen up everything above the shoulders
And Shake! This will help loosen everything up together
Exercise 4 - Tongue Retention
Stick your tongue out as far as you can and do a 'siren' from low to high and back down again
Check to feel if your tongue moves up or pulls back as this shows there is tension
To release the tension and to warm up the tongue, practice 'licking your teeth' from side-to-side and up and down