Why I Studied Vocal Warm-Ups

Singing teachers tend to teach in the way they were taught; if you’re a reader of vocal pedagogy literature, you’ll have seen that commonly stated. But I think that it’s only true if you believe the way you were taught was right for you.

I had some lovely voice teachers in my earlier education. Some classical, more Jazz. Some I absolutely clicked with and I think of fondly. Some, perhaps, who didn’t fully understand how to get the best out of me.

My first teacher was a wonderful woman. She was warm, funny, and got me through all my ABRSM Classical Singing grades during my time at High School. She also let me get away with not really warming up.

She would try to lead me in arpeggios and scale patterns with differing vowels, but I found them boring.

“I’ve been singing all morning” I’d say. Or “Can we warm up on the song?”

It was true that my voice was always well-used singing along to the radio in the mornings, but in allowing me to skip her warm-up exercises, I didn’t really learn how important a warm-up was, or the purposes it serves.

Skipping to University, I was a little better in doing the warm-ups in lessons (because I wouldn’t have gotten away with saying I didn’t want to do them!) But I still found them pretty boring. I recorded one once so that I could sing along at home before practising. It was about 20 minutes of simple scale patterns and various vowels. It did an ok job at warming me up, but it was SO LONG. I rarely used it, unless I was prepping for something I thought of as very important (usually an assessment) and could put the time aside. Even then, it felt like a chore.

A few things happened in the relatively recent past that changed my whole perspective.

The first was a Singing Teacher Training course I went on in 2018.

At the weekend, Kim Chandler talked us through how she considered the musical patterns and vowels that I had always associated with warming up to actually be ‘The Work Out’ and that, just as in sport/physical exercise, the warm up should be purely preparatory and functional. She talked us through the way she conducted her warm-up, with SOVT sounds and pitch glides, as well as some larger physical stretches. 10 minutes, maximum.

Well, that was what I needed to hear! Only 10 minutes? Without scales or arpeggios, or the need for a piano/rehearsal track?! Yes please.

Did everyone else already know this?!

I was on a new mission. I told all my students about it. I consistently warmed up before gigs and choir sessions for the first time ever. I even found ways to make it more fun for me - I put songs on so I could move about and be less bored while doing it!

When I started my MA in Vocal Pedagogy in 2020, my first research project was based around the vocal warm-up. I wanted to know whether the 1st year students coming to me knew what a warm-up was, why it was important and how to do one (because I certainly didn’t have that knowledge when I began university!)

I conducted a review of the literature to find out the answers (which I was certain would correlate with what Kim had taught me), with the intention of then surveying my new students, giving them a presentation about it, and then interviewing them a few weeks later to see whether their practice/understanding had changed, and how.

But here’s the interesting thing about vocal pedagogy literature; there’s almost never a clear cut answer. Here I was, certain that the old way I had been taught to warm up was completely wrong, and this new way was the magic answer which would work for everyone. I even found an article by Barr (2009) expecting the exact same thing and finding, as I did, that it wasn’t as clear cut as that.

The reasons for warming up are numerous, and the different approaches offer different benefits and options for the singer and the specific needs of the session.

For example, if I have 6 minutes before a performance, no space to be loud, and no external resources (piano, music player etc.), I might require/desire a different approach than if I have 20 minutes, a practice room with a piano, and am warming up for some specific technique practice.

My view on warm-ups morphed some more. I finished my research project, created a mini course for every new intake of singers at my university, put that mini course online, and worked to provide folk with the resources I didn’t have when I was starting out in my singing journey.

My aims are clear; make sure singers know why warming up is important, what the different options are for warming up (including their strengths and weaknesses), and give tools to create warm-ups that work for the individual and their vocal warm-up needs - including being aware of the obstacles that might get in the way of warming up effectively (like finding warming up boring!)

No judgement. No unbending rules on ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ approaches. No forcing yourself to do something you find utterly boring.

That’t it. That’s my mission. Is it the way I was taught? Not really. Is the way I wish I was taught? Absolutely!