When to do vocal warm ups
Top 3 Vocal Warm-Ups
boys I just feel like I have one voice
then I um I did this on Instagram
already but um it's been a long day
without you my friend and I'll tell you
all about it when I see you again
so going from head voice to chest force
back and forth when I feel like oh
that's kind of easy then I know I'm good
but if I feel like God tell you oh when
I feel like it's yeah then I know I got
more Z's to do more work to do this
video is about my personal warm-up
routine I get a lot of DMS and emails
etc asking me what do you do Eric like
how do you warm up your voice how do you
take care of your voice so before we
start I want to be clear that these are
a few of my favorite things but they may
not necessarily be your favorite things
a daily warm-up routine should be very
bespoke very customized to your
individual needs as a singer so what I
do is not necessarily what you need to
do but I'm sharing this with you as an
artist one artist to another just
sharing with you my experience and
hopefully if there are any gold nuggets
to be extracted from it and so be it
hopefully you find it enlightening and
educational and maybe give you a few new
ideas but with that being said let's
begin so when I warm up and again this
is specific to me everybody's different
even my students are different but I
like to approach it in three tiers I
always start off with my inhale first
because the inhale helps me to restore
space to my body if I'm stressed if I
haven't gotten a lot of sleep I do a lot
of traveling if I've been on an airplane
my body can feel really tight which
translates to tightness in my throat and
I have a heavy voice by Nature I don't
need any more on my throat so what I do
is an exercise called the sniff it's a
traditional classical exercise and what
you do and feel free to do it along with
me as I describe it it's in three parts
the first part is you sniff quickly and
audibly can you see that
my ribs just naturally open up and
remember in the beginning we might learn
like belly breathing and low breathing
but as we get more advanced we want the
expression of the breath to mainly be
manifested at the ribcage where your
actual diaphragm and lungs reside
so as I'm sniffing I'm not trying to
make it go into any particular place I'm
just keeping my shoulders and throw it
relaxed and my ribs should naturally
respond there is no magic number of
sniffs because people ask me that should
it be five sniffs three sniffs it's more
like the way I think of it is like this
is if let's say you're and you're in
your bedroom or something and you go did
someone leave the oven on is something
burning is there gas do you smell gas
you know how that people do that
inquisitive sniff like do you smell that
is that smoke you know is that is that
kind of sniff and it really tends to
open up the ribcage and not just the
sides but the back of your ribcage which
helps so much with controlling pressure
this is important for me because if I'm
doing a song like um so baby who me
closer and the backseat of your you know
something like that that's kind of papi
I mess up all the words I know but but
if I'm doing something like that because
my voice is naturally so low if I don't
feel really grounded in my body it's
easy for me to do baby pull me closer in
there I think I can go to that place
really easily I lived in that place for
many years but if I sniff I can feel the
sense of pressure and healthy tension
because we need tension to sing health
with even need tension to sing
powerfully we need tension to sing
beautifully this brings me to the second
step once you're full at the peak of
inhalation just hold it and feel how
your ribs particularly the sides and
back of your ribs can really hold the
pressure because when we're holding our
breath we can kind of concentrate the
energy of that at the glottis we can
kind of almost like you're having a
breath-holding contest at the swimming
pool with your cousins or something like
we can do that or we can feel the breath
being held you can even hear the
difference in my
I can really feel that you feel the
breath being held by the body which
allows passivity of the vocal tract I
feel very open very released like I
could read a like and I can read for an
audiobook recording of an audiobook but
anyway it lets you stay open so once you
do that this one more part sniff sniff
sniff hold ho hold no particular amount
of time you're just feeling your body so
hold and then now traditionally there's
a nasal exhale but I prefer to do it
with the hiss again this is just my
personal warmup
so if you're familiar with like Louisa
Tetrazzini or somebody like that like
the famous operatic soprano you might
know she advocated up a nasal exhale but
I like to do a hiss it just lets me feel
more of my body so I sniff sniff sniff I
hold hold hold
and then I hiss hiss hiss and as I'm
hissing you'll notice I don't go
no I why because it naturally activates
this I feel my ABS work reflexively it's
just such a good body wake up sniff
sniff sniff to open up hole to feel your
body holding the pressure and then when
you exhale I'm always talking about it
feel that solar plexus awakened it helps
to really energize and empower the voice
and it helps to maintain stability of
the breath so I do this about to be
honest when I'm warming up I do not
count I know I might do it three times I
might do it 10 times how do I know I'm
ready to sing or ready to move on to the
next part is this if I let myself go so
if I let a breath come into my body and
I feel like the size and back of my ribs
just swing open that I know I'm good
but if I get this don't know my back
that I know my back muscles they're
tight or if I get a big belly breath
then I know I'm tight again when we
first start teaching we tend to
emphasize in the a approach method we
tend to emphasize belly sides back just
to get you anchored lower in your body
but as we get more advanced we want to
make you aware of breathing length into
the body and having more expression of
open
at the ribs so that shouldn't mean that
the chest does lift and broaden the
chest is not evil the side ribs open up
the back ribs open up and you feel a
little pulled in gently it's not
contrived I'm not like trying to you
know like I'm doing a photo shoot or
something but there's a gentle lift in
the abdomen or maybe a firm lift
depending on how hard you're breathing
so but when I can feel that then I know
I'm good but if I get a big belly breath
or a big chest breath and I know I'm
tight and so I'm warming up my inhale
basically so I want to get to the point
where I feel like with very little
effort breath can enter my body very
freely and easily and if I feel that for
me it gives me a sense of confidence in
my voice to feel very ground and rooted
in my body in that way so after I've
gotten my inhale together I then like to
awaken my support reflexes as we call
them in the a approach method so support
reflexes refer to the natural responses
from your body when you compress air
when you use your voice so that these
muscles don't have to take over I love
to use a Z again this is just one of
many I'm giving you like my top three
kind of like right now I do a lot of
things but a Z works so well because
this is can you see this we call this
paradoxical openness I'm exhaling but
this is my ribcage is actually opening
up this kind of harkens back to the
Italian concept of inhalare la voce' to
inhale the voice it's not literally like
hmm it's not that but it's this idea of
having your body respond
ah ah as if you're inhaling even though
you are in fact exhaling and so what it
does is it stabilizes your breath unless
your diaphragm have room to move like it
needs to these microscopic movements
that help to support the voice but it
stabilizes the breath because if we
don't have the body working ah we get
that kind of thing so anyway I do is II
notice I have this keyboard here I
haven't touched it yet um when I warm up
I don't use scales I don't so I just go
by how my body feels and trying to try
to awaken reactions in my body and I do
teach this to my students I feel like if
you chase pitches
that can go wrong really fast but what I
do is I do it a Z or Zed depending on
what part of the world you're in
and now and once I feel like my body is
connecting as opposed to then I'll start
trying to I just start trying to connect
from head boys down it to chest voice I
want that one voice feeling if I get I'm
not there so I'm gonna feel like I can
like it's all one thing and the Z helps
me to get pressure in it but not from
here how long do I use it for cuz I can
hear you asking how many times how long
when I get the one the voice feeling I'm
good I don't tie my warm-ups beware the
magic formula so don't get too caught up
in this many repetitions or if I can
belt mix the high E or try to focus on
the process and connecting to your body
first and there are cues that let you
know when you're warmed up like I said
one of my cues is when my ribs move
freely out and back when I get that
Cobras hood or those wings kind of
feeling and the other cue for me is when
my voice when my registers feel very
evenly blended with very little effort
so when I feel like oh my voice I just
feel like I have one voice then I um I
did this on Instagram already but um
it's been a long day without you my
friend and I'll tell you all about it
when I see you again so going from head
voice to chest voice back and forth when
I feel like oh that's kind of easy then
I know I'm good but if I feel like God
oh when I feel like it's then I know I
got more Z's to do more work to do so Z
it out try so the last part of my warmup
and I kind of do this intimately
throughout the day is vocal fry now
before you start typing me a lengthy
message I can art it I can feel it
but vocal fry is bad let me explain
something to you
there's vocal fry that it's a chronic
harmful speaking pathology like oh my
god I literally died came back bought an
A approached t-shirt got married like
you know that's that's um what a lot of
people think of with vocal fry that kind
of okhla is wrought with tension
it can overwork the constrictor muscles
it can cause a lot of problems
especially if you don't have any control
over it that is not what I'm advocating
what I'm advocating is a very mindful
use of okhla I proven to strengthen the
vocal folds and believe it or not to
diminish compensatory behaviors in other
words to reduce strain so there's a
different kind of way I do vocal fry'
nuance is a thing okay so what I'm
advocating is this my throat is soft and
my body is responding why do I love
vocal fry so much by the nature of the
sound you are forced to release breath
slowly you are forced to tap into your
natural support mechanisms it also helps
you to find the core of your tone really
quickly it affects the muscle memory
posture memory of the folds so quickly
and it helps you to feel compression now
the key is to not squeeze your throat so
if you can keep your shoulders and your
throat relaxed and you can feel your
body responding the abdomen draws inward
you might feel healthy pressure
sensations in the solar plexus in the
back it's very good it brings so much
clarity and lightness and focus to the
voice now for me this is just for me
I don't pull fry as high as I can go I
know there are teachers who advocate
this I understand for my voice I use
vocal fry to drop the excess heaviness
of my voice
so since vocal fry is technically a
function of chest voice as I move up it
gets clearer and I let it
I don't fight to hold on to fry so I let
it be kind of rippling along the inner
edges of my cords so it's not um it's
not that and if you can't find it then
don't do it and if you have any
reservations about the technique just
don't do it but I've been doing it and
teaching it for years it's a great
success my vocal cords you played
healthy thank you oh and I've found that
um it works really well to keep people
consistent my Broadway clients
especially loved it because it lets you
keep power but get more piercing quality
to the voice that you can belt without
feeling way down
so this healthier kind of vocal fry'
involves letting go of the throat and
some of the cues the physical cues that
were doing correctly will be of a felt
sensation you may not see it but mmm in
my body I'm very strong here so you can
see it moving but the epigastrium firm
and protrude forward it might be more
felt than seen depending on your current
strength level and that's okay and your
body type is totally fine and also your
back mmm which is kind of evidence by
our side ribs opening up cuz the last
when the lats activate they open us up
sideways as well mmm
[Music]
again you may feel that more and see
that less than you doing me but I kind
of want you to feel the way I look when
I do that if you try so my Broadway
students tend to like this because it
helps to really get that piercing
[Music]
gravity you know that kind of ant and
that's like really extreme and kind of
harsh sorry for you guys but it gets
that kind of ant you know I think about
that Elsie defined that Inc kind of
quality to it they're really piercing
focus yeah and so even when I have opera
singers sometimes I'll have a female um
a soprano singer who like
and it's really breathy despite her
efforts to support and we'll do some fry
[Music]
I'm trying to think of a part of Maduro
poopy lei but the point is it helps you
to get focus in the course I feel like
it helps you to get to the seed center
of your tone so that silver thread of
the voice how long do I practice this um
I kind of work on it intermittently
throughout the day like I don't really I
kind of it's kind of like the background
notes of my life
you probably catch me frying mmm if I'm
stuck in traffic if I'm sitting on an
airplane if I'm waiting on a plane um I
do it like I just do it until I feel
like I have that crisp Center to my
voice when I feel like I can access that
crisp focus that piercing quality to my
voice did I know I'm there however long
that takes because again my voice if I'm
not in good voice if I'm not in good
vocal shape I have a lot of airiness
I'll have a lot of huskiness um but if
I'm really making good use of Frye it'll
really put me in touch with that focus
and my throat muscles will feel like
they turn off as opposed to activate so
this is not the harmful speaking
pathology vocal fry' it's literally
something different than this so I don't
want you to use that I want you to let
this go and feel your body so those are
my three or three of my favorite daily
vocal warm-ups to do to keep my voice
strong and healthy and supple and pliant
you do not have to do these I'm simply
sharing and if any of these don't work
for you then so be it but if you go to
my site a approached comm a appr Oh ACH
comm then you can find out how to work
with me one on one through Skype
FaceTime or in person from anywhere in
world well not so much the in person
part you'd have to actually come here
but but you can work with me from
anywhere in the world through skype or
facetime that's on my site you can also
buy one of my video courses like
breathing bootcamp for singers where I
talk about everything here plus so much
more I go into far greater detail and
how to harness the breath inside of you
to really tap into the full powers that
you possess vocally that's really
dramatic but you'd be surprised what you
can do if you start to learn to feel and
strengthen muscles that you may not even
know you have so that's it for now
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