It’s the beginning of 2016 and you haven’t practiced any singing since before Christmas. Does that sound like you? I am a little bit guilty of this too. The Christmas season was so busy for me I hardly had any time for anything else. It was a wonderful time celebrating with family and friends and I did sing heaps of Christmas carols, but most things like practice got put aside. Now with the new year we find ourselves back into more of a routine, but finding the motivation to get back into practice can be a bit challenging.
You might want to start by sitting down and writing out a couple of goals for your singing this next couple of months. My goal at the moment is to come up with a list of ten songs I would like to start learning as I need to build up my repertoire for performance and auditions.
However, it is important that I don’t start singing all these 10 songs straight away. Over this week all I am trying to do is get my voice back in shape. I need to do my vocal “push ups”. Just like the rest of our body, if we don’t exercise consistently, things get out of shape. My vocal chords and the surrounding muscles need to get a good work out.
I need to do this slowly, a bit to start with and then lengthen my sessions later on in the week.
So to start I will just do some light warm ups. Sirens, bubbling lips, humming etc.. through my vocal range. Then some exercises to extend my vocal range and work on my resonance and then get into learning songs.
Starting with 15 – 20 minutes and then gradually increase this time over the week.
Just like the rest of your body, if you go out and exercise full on straight away, you will most likely be very sore the next day or may even do some damage. Your voice is the same. Go slowly and gradually build up your strength and stamina.
Here are a couple of exercises to get you started:
Breathing:
5 note scale on ah:
