5 Secrets to Warming Up Your Voice For Your Next Show or Recording Session
This post helps you get started, but that’s only the beginning.
What would it feel like to sing your heart out with a transformed voice performing to thousands of people by the end of the year?
Come join the tens of thousands of singers who have already transformed their voices with my Singers Gift Warmups. Set your voice free in just 20 minutes a day with these revolutionary techniques found only here! Click here to find out how.
Warming up is a great way to better and more consistent performances and recording. There is a science to it that I have honed and perfected over the years.
Here are my 5 Innovative Tips to Warming Up Your Voice For Your Next Show or Recording Session:
1. Hydration
If you want to sound good it starts with hydration. When the voice is hydrated it is easier to sing. Hydration improves your range, tone, and overall strength and flexibility and will help your voice sing more consistently and confidently.
Hydrate for 3 days up to a week before a performance to feel the effects. Hydration combines water, steam, and consuming high water-content foods.
Try this for 3 days up to 1 week before an important performance or recording:
- Water – drink 8 glasses of water per day. You can drink plain water or throw chunks of melon or cucumber into your water for extra moisture.
- Steam – steam 2-3x a day for 5-7 minutes. Steam brings moisture to your vocal cords, and many singers steam pre-shows for extra hydration. In a pinch, you can steam with a cup of hot water right before your show or during your recording session for extra hydration on the spot.
- Consume foods with a high water content. Hydration is more than water:
- Broth
- Fresh squeezed green juice
- Salads
Click here for my Ultimate Hydration Plan on Instagram.
2. Stretch the muscles surrounding your instrument
One of the main contributing factors to issues with vocal performance is tension in the muscles surrounding the voice. Contracted, tight muscles surrounding the vocal muscles constrict the singing voice. This tension literally “squeezes” the voice causing a tight, thin, raspy, or throaty sound. Tension in these muscles constricts range and can lead to vocal problems such as early fatigue, vocal loss, and problems with consistency in performance.
The muscles to work on are the jaw, tongue, neck, throat, and abdominal muscles.
The best overall body stretch which gets everything is yoga or some form of full-body stretching. Massage is also a tool to release tension and open the voice for singing. See #4 below.
Try this to stretch out your neck muscles:
- Stretch your right hand up towards the ceiling alongside your head.
- Let your right ear press into your right bicep.
- Reach over your head to grasp your left ear with your right hand.
- Gently pull your head to the right letting your right ear fall into your right arm.
- Take a deep breath and pull a little more to the right while letting your head fall into your arm.
- Repeat on the other side.
- This stretches out the side neck muscles (sternocleidomastoids) helping to eliminate tension surrounding the vocal instrument. Do daily.
The jaw and tongue can be a big contributor to vocal limitations in performance. Tension in these muscles can limit the range, constrict tone, and cause early fatigue and vocal loss. Stretching these muscles is one of the key techniques in warming up that I include in my technique because it gets such great results and helps singers perform with more confidence and consistency.
Try this to release tension in the jaw:
Note: *the jaw releases when you move it slowly, not when it is yanked or pulled with force.
- Close your mouth.
- Gently grip your jaw with your hand and open the jaw to where it naturally sits open.
- Gently pull the jaw down another half inch. If you have TMJ open the jaw just before it clicks.
- Inhale and exhale in this position, while feeling a heaviness in your jaw muscles. Let the jaw relax in this position will help to stretch it out and release tension deep inside the muscle.
A tight tongue causes all kinds of problems with vocal tone and timbre. When the tongue is too tight and too active in vocal production the voice can sound too thin, tight, nasal, strained, squeezed, pinched, too bright, or strident sounding. A tight tongue can also cause an overcompressed uncomfortable sound.
The tongue, as a small muscle, also tends toward tension. Tension in the tongue can cause all kinds of problems including nasality, cracking and breaking on notes, going too early into head voice, lack of power or belt, and difficulty with high notes. In vocal technique, we stretch the tongue to lengthen it reducing tension which helps produce more sound and smoother, more consistent high notes.
Try this to release tension in the tongue:
- Take a washcloth or paper towel wetted with a little water and pull the tongue straight forward.
- Stick the tongue out and downward towards the floor. Inhale and exhale reaching the tongue down toward the floor to stretch it out.
To work on all of the specific stretches and massages for your vocal instrument: jaw, tongue, neck, all part of a vocal warmup series to open and free your voice for performance, grab a copy of my Singers Gift Vocal Warmups here.
3. Aerobics
Aerobics on the day of performance help to open and free your vocal instrument. Even when you are not feeling well a brisk walk or light jog can open your breathing and improve your performance. I learned a lot about how to warm up for an important performance or recording session when I was in my 20’s singing for a living. I found that a light 20 minute jog opened my voice to give better performances.
Try this:
- Light jog or treadmill – 20 minutes
- Brisk walk outdoors or on a treadmill- 20 minutes
- Rebounder – 20 minutes
- Stair climb – 20 minutes
Aerobics do so much for your voice to warm up the body, open your breathing and prepare you for performance!
Get my Ultimate Performer Routine here inside my Ultimate Performer Tools & Techniques Guidebook!
You will find these vocal massages inside my Singers Gift Vocal Warmups. These vocal massages are specifically designed to reduce tension in the singing voice and open your voice up for performance.
5 Vocal Techniques to Sing Without Strain and Improve Volume and Power
How to Warmup Your Voice for Performance to Sing High Notes with Ease
5 Secrets To Make Your Voice Sound Better
4. Vocal Massage
Vocal massage reduces tension and opens the voice for singing.
During singing, air comes up from the lungs, hits the vocal folds, and vibration and sound occur. As you sing, this action tends toward pushing the vocal muscles upwards contributing to strain, inflammation, and a choked or tight sensation in the throat area. This can also create a “high” larynx which destabilizes the voice and causes issues with cracking, breaking, or early fatigue and hoarseness.
Vocal massage helps to return these muscles to their original position and remediate the extra tension that is accumulating.
Try these vocal massages to help reduce strain on the vocal instrument:
- Wrap your thumb and fingers around the vocal muscles at the top of your throat.
- Start a slight yawn in the back of your throat
- As you yawn, slide your fingers downward gently pulling the throat muscles downward. Do not force – be gentle.
- Repeat 2-3 times each day.
- This vocal massage will help decrease tension in your throat and will help to reduce hoarseness that accumulates from over-singing or yelling.
5. Open your throat before singing
When you sing without opening up the throat the voice is tight and the larynx tends to sit in a high position which destabilizes the voice. This results in a constricted, tight sound and causes early fatigue in performance.
In my Singers Gift Vocal Warmups, we use two movements that open the throat. Here is one of them.
Try this:
- Yawn with your finger horizontal at the top of the throat. Try to yawn more with the back of your throat vs. your jaw. A little of both is good.
- Watch in the mirror. Do you see your finger and throat slip downward as you yawn?
- Now hold an imaginary cup of water and bring it to your mouth to drink. As you prepare to drink do you notice your throat slip downward? This is a movement we do throughout the day and is easy to feel and repeat.
- This is a motion you want to do when warming up your voice to open the throat. This moves the laryngeal muscles and tongue downward and lifts the soft palate preparing your voice for singing in an open and free way. Once it is programmed into the body it becomes a natural movement that you don’t even have to think about.
Warning: You can’t force these muscles down. They need to be gently and correctly trained to sit in the right position. Practice with my Singers Gift Vocal Warmups that come with full demonstrations of how to execute this technique. When the throat is more open and the larynx sits in a deeper bed (which comes from training) you have more control over your voice and high notes.
Getting control of your instrument is achieved by practicing The Cole Vocal Method 5 days a week for 20 minutes a day. Practice these techniques with my Singers Gift Vocal Warmups to get these motions programmed into your voice! Includes my revolutionary vocal stretches and massages, vocal warmup exercises, diaphragmatic breathing to free up your range and tone for your performance or recording.
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Cari Cole is the CEO / Founder of caricole.com and CCVM: Label Without Walls. She is a Holistic Vocal Coach, Artist Development Expert, A&R Director, and Songwriter based in New York City helping artists for the past 38 years. She is a mentor for Women in Music and The Association of Independent Music Publishers.
Her latest venture, CCVM a label services company, provides artists with a seamless path from creation to completion. After 30+ years of observing the overwhelm and challenges that artists face, Cari pulled together the best top creative professionals and designed a new approach to supporting our artists.
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