How long should you warm up your voice before singing?
In general, I would recommend at least 20 minutes of warm ups; 30 minutes would be preferable.
Warming up your voice for singing is similar to preparing your muscles before running a marathon. If you don’t do it, or don’t do it long enough, you may get injured.
Below are a few suggestions for a good vocal warm up:
- Use an instrument (keyboard) to do your warm ups. You want to make sure that you sing the notes on pitch. If you don’t have a keyboard, you can download a free keyboard app on your device. Here’s an example: for android | for apple.
- Always start in your low range and move up gradually. Don’t go all the way to the top of your range right away. Do it gradually, over a few vocal exercises.
- Do the vocal exercise going both ways up and down.
- Alternate agility-type exercises, like scales and arpeggios, with slower exercises geared toward tone quality, like long tones.
- If you know only a few exercises, and they don’t cover 20 minutes, it’s ok to repeat them. Variety is not the main point here. 😊
- If possible, stay in a warm environment after warming up your voice. If you have to be in the cold, breathe through your nose, and not your mouth.
The type of exercises you do will depend on your current vocal level. However, any vocal exercise, if done well, can be helpful. It’s mainly about stretching your vocal cords and warming up your voice muscles.
If you need help figuring out what to do to warm up your voice, you can check out my Guided 5-Minute Vocal Warm Up.
Here’s to a healthy and happy voice! 🥂
–Ramesha
