📆 Week 2: Build the Warm-Up (Modular & Scaffolded)

Movement is very important for me as I have chronic pain issues from some health challenges. There are a number of movement patterns that help me and I draw on a combination of Pilates, Gyrotonic/Gyrokinesis and Alexander Technique tools. I always begin with helping my neck have a free range of movement. I like one of two exercises for this. The first is from Alexander technique and is just a slow rotation of the head from side to side as if saying "no." If I am a bit tighter I will do an exercise from Pilates called chest expansion. To do this you can stand with your heels together but the toes slightly turned out. You take a breath in and on the exhale bring straight arms back behind the body with the palms facing behind you. You then look to the right and then to the left. The head and arms return to the starting position. Then you bring the arms behind your body and look to the left and then the right. The head and arms return to center. This can be repeated for 5 sets. I also like to open my back up with a Gyrokinesis exercise that is done seated. You sit up tall on the sitz bones and place your left hand on your belly with the  right hand on top of the left hand.  On an inhale you curve your spine backwards creating a hollow in the front. You exhale audibly and gently arch the spine. This can be repeated for 10 repetitions. There are lots of other ones l like to do, but these are some of my favorites.

Heidi Vass This system was created by Julio Horvath who is still alive and living in Germany. It is a very unique movement system and originally called yoga for dancers. There is a great video that explains Gyrotonic work which is using very specific pieces of equipment. https://youtu.be/oE33mjnvRAc. Gyrokinesis is an offshoot of the same movement system that allows people to take some of these movement patterns into their home with just a small stool or a mat so that they can do some work on their own. This video explains Gyrokinesis. https://youtu.be/wXYQIwas0GE I have found the flowing nature of this work really helpful in creating strength and appropriate range of motion without causing any tension. There are likely studios in your area of California as it is more popular on the west coast than in Virginia where I live. I am lucky to have an amazing friend who is both a classically trained Pilates instructor and a gyrotonic/gyrokinesis instructor that introduced me to this method.

My physical warmup can take a while. I need to feel "in my body" to sing my best, and have found that being warm and loose is helpful for me to find freedom in my singing. The attached video is posted with the "Do Not Try This At Home" caveat (and I need more air in my ball - it cooled off last night)! I've found working on the ball to be the quick way to getting warm, it grounds me, forces me to find balance, it activates my core in ways no other exercise can, and it really helps me to focus and be in-the-moment. I like to stretch a bit, too. I typically spend a minimum of 10 minutes, and when I have time, quite a bit more on the physical portion of my warm-up. My favorite time to have a vocal lesson is within 30 minutes of a full work out! 

I am going to combine Wednesday and Thursdays posts as this week has been incredibly busy for me. I would say that my middle range starts around C4 and goes up to around A4/B-flat 4. I think that the biggest challenge in this range is that I definitely have a passaggio that around E4/F4 area that I need to navigate carefully. That being said, this range is definitely quite comfortable for me typically beyond this one small area. Interestingly, I find that passaggio much easier to navigate in repertoire than in some of the technical exercises that I have been practicing. In terms of my lower range, this goes from B3 down to A2 on a good day. I would say B-flat 2 is more common the end of what I can control right now. In terms of vowels, I find a long E vowel to be my top choice for navigating the lowest portion of my range. My second choice is "Ah." Though, I find "Ah" to be comfortable throughout my range.

My upper register is generally an area of growth recently for me. I have been working on several coloratura exercises with my voice teacher and this has really helped me be able to control this area of my voice. I do find that warming up sufficiently and not over pushing too soon to get into my upper register is really important. I also find that there are day to day fluctuations as to how high my voice can go. That being said, I am finding that I am relatively consistently making my way up to about B-flat 5. There are days were this can expand to C6 or even a bit beyond this. Overall, I feel like my warmup is often a really good way to be able to know how high I may be able to safely work in a given session. I am hoping as I gain more experience this range becomes more consistent.  

I like using the “u” sometimes I stress out with “o” as I want to keep it pure and my tendency is making it into a diphthong

It's been a busy week (canning and otherwise preparing food for storage), so I'm just now getting back to this.

Tuesday: Because I have asthma, I tend to spend more time on breathwork, and I don't do the same thing every day rather check in to see how I'm feeling and go from that point. Leaky tires (long and then medium-length) are common, I always do tongue trill sirens - sometimes I'll do these in patterns (1-3-5-3-1). Just this past week in lesson we did patterned tongue trill right into singing on a vowel. 

Wednesday: I'm still learning so much about my voice! Because I spent most of my life (until just a few months ago) singing in my low-range, I have to remember that my "mid-range" is higher than I think it is. I think my newly-found comfortable range is from around middle c up to the next B-flat.

Thursday: In lessons we've used "ah" and "eh" and "a". I tried the other vowels - I liked "o" with "ah" being a close second. 

Friday: I've not done this before, and I've been gentle with my voice for the past couple of weeks after a slight illness, so I didn't try it this week. What I usually do in warm-up is follow the pattern 1-3-2-4-5-4-2-1 moving through a relatively full range on "vah" and "vey."