5 Vocal Warm Up Exercises Every Beginner Should Do Before Singing

Most singers warm up by doing random exercises they remember from different tutorials, in no particular order. But the order matters. In this episode, I’m taking you through five vocal warm-up exercises, stacked in the right order, to help you warm up your voice safely and effectively.

Why the Order of Your Vocal Warm-Up Matters

A good vocal warm-up isn’t just a collection of exercises.

There’s a reason we start with certain sounds before moving into chest voice, head voice and eventually mix voice. We want to release tension, gently stretch the vocal cords and teach the voice an efficient way of working before asking it to do anything more challenging.

So actually do these exercises with me. Pay attention to how your voice feels right now, and then notice how it feels once we’ve completed all five exercises.

Exercise 1: Start With the Imaginary Straw

The first exercise is what I like to call the imaginary straw.

Imagine you’re blowing through a straw, even though there isn’t actually a straw there. Keep your cheeks nice and puffy and slide gently from one note to another.

This exercise uses SOVT, or back pressure, to help release tension around the vocal cords. We can move from chest to mix to head voice and back down again while stretching the vocal cords without unnecessary tension.

With SOVT, air travels out while a little back pressure comes in. Your voice sits between those two streams of air, which can feel like a lovely little massage for your voice.

As you move through the exercise, remember: no forcing. Let those higher notes happen rather than pushing your voice toward them.

Exercise 2: Reduce the Back Pressure With a Lip Trill

Now we’re going to continue using an SOVT sound, but this time with a lip trill.

There’s less back pressure with this exercise than with our imaginary straw. That’s intentional.

We’re slowly reducing the amount of back pressure until eventually we can sing without it. Singing with back pressure encourages the voice to work efficiently, so we first want to introduce that healthy coordination into your muscle memory before removing the SOVT completely.

We’ll use a nice long scale so we can continue stretching the vocal cords.

Again, this should feel easy and relaxed.

If lip trills are particularly difficult for you, it can also be a useful sign that there’s something in your vocal technique that deserves attention. Breath support, for example, can influence how easily you’re able to do a lip trill.

Exercise 3: Activate Your Chest Voice

Our voice is activated and the vocal cords have been gently stretched, so now we can start working with our registers.

First up: chest voice.

Give me a big but relaxed “my” in your chest voice. We’re not looking for pushing or unnecessary tension. We simply want to wake up and activate that chest register.

Keep it relaxed as you move through the exercise.

And yes, I might challenge you with “one more” when you thought you were already singing the last one!

Exercise 4: Keep Your Head Voice Light

Next, we move into head voice.

Give me a light “yoo.” Imagine that slightly playful prince-or-princess sound. That’s the place we want to sit in for this exercise.

We’ll sing “yoo” while moving down the scale.

The most important thing here is to keep the sound light. Don’t force it and don’t worry about making it sound huge or powerful. Right now, we simply want to activate that head voice in a healthy way.

Exercise 5: Bring It Together in Your Mix Voice

We’ve activated chest voice. We’ve activated head voice. So now it’s time to work with what comes in between: your mix voice.

For this exercise, we’re looking for a very sharp sound placed toward the front of your resonance space.

Think: “Yeh!”

Keep the sound sharp and forward. And don’t worry if it doesn’t sound particularly beautiful.

In fact, here’s a motto worth remembering: it doesn’t have to sound pretty — it has to sound healthy.

Once the coordination is working well, we can start thinking about vocal color and how we actually want the finished sound to feel. But during a warm-up, healthy coordination comes first.

You’ve Just Warmed Up Your Voice in the Right Order

Virtual high five!

You’ve now worked through all five exercises in a specific sequence: starting with SOVT and gently stretching the vocal cords before activating chest voice, head voice and finally mix voice.

If you had jumped straight into that final mix voice exercise, you might have been tempted to push or strain. By doing the SOVT exercises first, we’re preparing the voice before asking more from it.

That’s the thinking behind this entire warm-up.

Consistency Is Where the Magic Happens

This warm-up is also an example of the kind of practice we do inside the Vocal Freedom Practice Hub.

The idea is simple: hit play and sing along with me.

Whether you have two minutes available to train your voice or an entire hour for a deeper practice, the goal is to make vocal training fit into your schedule so that you can stay consistent.

Because this is only the warm-up.

Imagine what becomes possible when we start diving deeper into the different vocal techniques as well.

Ready to Go Deeper? Join the Vocal Freedom Practice Hub for just $1.

This is a shorter version of the full high notes practice inside the Vocal Freedom Practice Hub. Ready for the complete session?

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