Singing Warm-Ups

Singing warm-ups free printable sheets, for your vocal students.  Address vocal resonance, relaxation, breathing for singing, vocal range, and other issues with these vocal warmups.

Singing Warm-Ups, Music-for-Music-Teachers.com

Vocal Warm-Ups

I start all voice lessons with singing warm-ups of some kind.

If it is a morning or even early afternoon lesson, the vocal warmups will probably start with humming and careful listening with harmony... a singing exercise that stretches gently and softly.

Vocal warmups using animal sounds like a cat's meow or a gorilla hoot.

Please scroll down for the link to the sheet music shown above

Hooting like a gorilla, whimpering like a puppy, meowing like a cat, and more...

These warmups will help your student begin to understand resonance in the mask, how to use the diaphragm, and how to open the throat!

If my student has already warmed up, we MAY start right in with one of their songs.

More likely, though, we will start with a round such as "Heigh, Ho" to get them listening and concentrating as they sing.  

We might work on a duet or group song that we are preparing for a recital.  This way, they don't sing "full voice" right at first.

By that time, we will probably stop and do a few "sirens" and 5-note scales, if their voice still sounds a bit tight to me.

Easy vocal warmups for first thing in the morning using slides and hums

Please scroll down for the link to the sheet music shown above

Easy slides and steps are what these morning warmups are about.

My warm-ups always are written in the key of C (to start), to orient the pianist whose job it is to PLAY the exercise (or my students, once they've figured out how to play it on the piano).  Then they move up.

In fact, it is best, I tell my students, when they are still working at learning the notes of a song, to sing sotto voce, with a subdued voice, or even down an octave much of the time as they practice the song, if the vocal line lingers up high for a while.

This is also a very good practice in choral groups, and especially in long rehearsals of The Messiah!)

Some students seem blessed with a naturally warm, flexible, high and phlegm-free voice. How I envy them.

Others (more like me!) have voices that wake up tight and a little stiff unless the voice is "flexed" every day, a bit like a new, un-stretched balloon.

One of my daughters has a voice as tight as a new thick rubber band.

Daily, she needs gentle warming up as well as an additional vigorous workout.

Without daily attention, her singing voice can be rough and subject to breaking only an octave above Middle C.

Changing vocal register - help students sing through the break with these vocal exercises

Please scroll down for the link to the sheet music shown above

Help your students understand the "break" in their voice, and how to move through it smoothly.

In addition to these exercise shown above, I also like to take them through a two-octave scale:

  • Starting high, and coming down two octaves
  • Starting low, and going UP two octaves.

As they sing both scales, they need to be watchful of the place(s) where they encounter the register change!

My own singing voice seems to acquire ever greater smoothness (in spite of rapidly advancing age!) as I have built the habit over the past few years of lightly warming up off and on throughout the whole day and even into the evening.

This habit was forced upon me, the piano teacher, gradually, as I acquired more and more voice students... I had to be able to sing up high -- no more excuses!

The result of this continuous light singing is (to my own surprise) the ability to sing with ease on Sunday mornings at church the melodies of old-fashioned hymns (invariably set too high!), even early in the morning.

That is a fun thing; I used to stick almost exclusively to the alto harmonies!

Getting a resonant sound in the voice with vocal warmups

Please scroll down for the link to the sheet music shown above

Like the animal sounds page, this page will help with developing resonance.

However blessed your singing student may be naturally, learning a set of vocal warmups that they can recall by memory at home, and use to gently warm themselves up, will help prevent sore throats and "blown" voices when they sing for an hour or more a day at lessons, rehearsals, school choir or just around the house.

Therefore, I encourage them to learn the easiest patterns on the piano, and demonstrate them during lessons.  

Please scroll down for the link to the sheet music shown above

This is an advanced skill, but ear training has to start somewhere!

As a vocal teacher working at the piano bench, these warm-ups are most efficiently performed at lessons if you have the ability to transpose the patterns up or down a half-step after each repetition. This is a sophisticated skill! But it can be learned.

If transposing seems too much of a stretch for you, take a look at my page for Beginning Piano students Mary Had a Little Lamb. Transposing using a very easy song is a great way to get started.

But to help those who are less pianists than vocalists, all of the vocal exercises are written in the key of C (all white notes!).



The page links:


Dianna:
Your website is a light in the darkness. THANK YOU for all you do in helping to spread the love of music. It matters!

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Vocal Warm-Ups music book

Carrie,Voice and Piano Teacher:
This site is FABULOUS.

For all the reasons you explain on the site itself--this is exactly what piano teachers need! (I still need to go look at the vocal music). Wow. THANK YOU SO MUCH!

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Marta:
Thank you for the free downloads! I'm a private teacher and I teach piano and beginner voice as well. :)

I've been running my studio for about a year and I've come across the same issue; I don't want my students to have to purchase an entire supplemental book for only a couple of songs. So thank you for this site...some great downloads!!

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Comments

I'd love to know about your favorite warm-ups, perhaps passed on to you by a dear teacher, or one you have made up yourself and come to rely upon. Tell us how you use it!

What Other Visitors Have Said

Click below to see contributions from other visitors to this page...

mama made me mash my m and ms 
We do this one in class every day... it is very repetitive. Dana: I have seen this one before, but not the notes with which to sing it. I suppose …

12345 
12345 54321 15453525 1545321 15453525 1545678 Finger placement = 1 on C, 2 on D etc. Sing numbers to the melody played as indicated by finger …

Warmups for Steps of the Scale & Intonation 
We do this at school during music class. 1, 1 2 1, 1 2 3 2 1, 1 2 3 4 3 2 1, 1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1, 1 2 3 4 5 6 5 4 3 2 1, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 6 5 4 …

Warm up with the Baha'i choir 
The local Baha'i choir the "New Era Baha'i Singers" in Perth run up and down the octave with the following phrases when warming up: "Yonder and far" …

two tigers 
two tigers tango in the twiiilight till they are too tired to tango anymorrre, its in a blues key. i learned this from a dear teacher of mine and we all …

Great diction Warm Up 
do, do re do, do re mi re do, do re mi fa mi re do, do re mi fa so fa mi re do, do re mi fa so la so fa mi re do, do re mi fa so la ti la so fa mi re do, …

Heres a warm up 
he did, he did, he died of a broken rib he did he did, he did, he died of a broken rib he did he did, he died, he died, he did, he died of a broken rib …

Diction 
Diction is done with the tip of the tongue and the teeth.

Tinkers Take Their Time at Tea... 
"Tinkers take their time at tea until their tale is told" -- Great one for early morning warm-ups -- have fun with it!

Daddy dropped a dollar down the drain 
I teach piano and vocal beginners at my teacher's suggestion to help round out my budget. Dana: Cute tongue-twister!

super bubble gum 
super bubble gum (clap,clap) super dooper bubble gum (clap,clap) super dooper double bubble super dooper double bubble super dooper double gum (clap,clap) …

baba baby baby baba booba 
Each beat of every word you clap. Dana: Each beat? Or each syllable? This would be fun going faster and faster. Thanks for sharing.

New York 
I know New York I need New York I know I need unique New York Dana: Thanks, Emily. What tune would work with this, I wonder?

Twinkling stars 
Two twinkling stars telling too many stories too-oo-night Dana: Megan, I don't get how to use this!

M&M's 
Mama made me mash my M&M's Dana: That's hard to say!

Mary Had a Little Lamb for Choral Warmup 
We go 'Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow', up a semitone each time. And then 'Everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go', …

Mumbling Mice 
Many Mumbling Mice Are making midnight music in thee moonlight Mighty nice ...Ooo! This "tongue-twister" is really all about the lips, not the …

Click here to write your own.


About the Author

Dana Thynes

Hi, I'm Dana!  (Say that like "Anna".)  I'm the owner of Music-for-Music-Teachers.com, and a newer site, SingTheBibleStory.com.

Like some of you, I've been playing the piano since early childhood, and have added a few other instruments along the way, plus an interest in arranging and composing music.

You can find out more about me and the reason for this website at my About Me page.