📆 Week 2: Build the Warm-Up (Modular & Scaffolded)
🎶 Overview:
This 3-week intensive is designed to help singers build a personalized vocal warm-up that prepares the voice effectively without overworking it. Using a scaffolded approach, you'll learn to distinguish between warming up and working out, explore static vs. flexible warm-up structures, and build a routine tailored to your voice and needs.
Watch:
✨ TIP: A warm-up is like stretching before a full-body workout—it prepares your voice for the task ahead but is NOT the workout itself. Warm-ups should never fatigue your voice. They help you "say hello" to your instrument and assess how it's functioning that day.
Goal: Construct a functional warm-up routine using modular exercises that build from body to breath to range.
Monday: Body Mechanics
Activity: Create your physical prep sequence (stretching, Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais scan, or movement).
Purpose: Loosen physical tension and bring awareness to posture, alignment, and readiness to sing.
Prompt: Share your movement sequence. How does it affect your breath, focus, and tone?
Tuesday: Breath & Onset
Establish body-to-breath connection: Start with airflow awareness (hissing, silent breath) then add gentle SOVT (lip trills, tongue trills).
Pattern: 1-3-5-1-5-3-1 on a neutral vowel or trill, moving up and down in half steps
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✨ TIP: This is not the time to stretch your range! Use patterns that stay within your working comfort zone.
Prompt: Record and share your go-to breath-to-voice transition. What wakes up your airflow and tone?
Wednesday: Say Hello to the Middle Range
Define your middle range (the part of your voice that feels most stable and balanced).
Use a pattern: 1-3-2-4-3-5-4-2-1. Start in your middle-middle, then gently move down and up.
Stay connected to a balance of resonance—not pulled into chest, not floating into head.
Prompt: What surprised you about your middle range? How did it feel compared to yesterday?
Thursday: Explore the Low Range
Begin from the middle voice, use a descending pattern (5-4-3-2-1-2-3-4-5) moving by half steps.
Move into chest without force or press.
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✨ TIP: Try different vowels to explore your low range. Often, [u] and [o] yield more freedom.
Prompt: What vowels helped you feel connected and grounded?
Friday: Touch the Head Voice
Start from middle and gently leap into head voice (octave jump).
Use an easy, resonant vowel ([i] in mid-range, [a]/[o] as you move higher).
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✨ TIP: Always work in both directions. Don’t just go up and stay there—come back down to reset.
Prompt: How did your head voice feel after the week of building support?
Saturday: Add-On for Daily Needs
Choose: agility drill, articulation, or sustained phrase pattern depending on what you're singing that day.
Prompt: What did you add and why? How does it relate to your vocal goals?
Sunday: REST
36 replies
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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."
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The scaffolding exercises were great... I will build a routine.
The breathing exercises were hard especially the The one were you have to keep you ribs out whilst your belly in!
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Sorry I have been MIA for a lot of this. We are in the process of selling our home and getting ready to move to the UK (Wales). These look like great suggestions - my routine had been doing the same warmups every day but I want to try these.
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Saturday: Articulation - because it's something I need to remind myself of early in my singing process so I'll bring it with me into the workout and repertoire practice.