Personal Warm-Up Practice

 My personal preparation for singing was to extend my vocal range with the use of various exercises:

·         Breathing and breath control to relax and remove all tension

·         Big Mouth

·         Big Mouth with silent scream

·         Cat’s Bum

·         Cat’s Bum with silent scream

·         Sirening – (mmm, oooh, woahh, ahhh)

·         “A, E, I, O, U”

·         “A, E, I, O, U”– raising octave

·         “Ah, Ay, Eee, Oh, Ooh”

·          “Ah, Ay, Eee, Oh, Ooh”– raising octave

·         Tongue twisters

·         “mmmm” – resonator not scales

·         “ooooh” – resonator

·         “woahh” – resonator

·         “ahhh” – resonator

·         “Sh, sh, sh, sh”

·         “Tss, tss, tss, tss”

·         “Pft, pft”

·         “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha” – exaggerated laughing, with my hands on my diaphragm so I could feel the movement and contractions of it.

·         “Huh, huh, huh, huh” – with my hands on my diaphragm so I could feel the movement and contractions of it.

·          “A-men”

·         I then worked on some Tongue Twisters.

·         Next I began some staccatos first with the sound of ‘la’. I had to ensure that I relaxed my jaw and I began lowering and ascending in octaves as I went along. I then repeated this exercise but this time with the sound of ‘nan a nan a nan a nan a na’ then ‘nah nah nah’. To exercise and strengthen my jaw and upper palate I then made the sound ‘nya nya nya nya nya’. I then stretched out various other facial muscles by making the sound ‘maw maw maw’ ensuring that my lips were pursed creating a ‘fish’ face.

·         I then exercised our soft palate: ‘yah-e-ah yah-e-ah yah-e-ah yah-e-ah yah-e-ah yah-e-ah yah-e-ah yaaaahh’ with this exercise I raised octaves as I went along and as well as for me to exercise my soft palate it helped with my vibrato.

·       ‘yah yah yah yah yaaah, yah yah yah yah yaaah, yah yah yah yah yaaah, yaaah’, ‘la la la la laaah, la la la la laaah, la la la la laaah, laaah’ and ‘mm mm mm mm mmmm, mm mm mm mm mmmm, mm mm mm mm mmmm, mmmm’ – I lowered in octaves

I I still struggle with my pitching  but with practice I have managed to improve my range and have been, on 1 or 2 occasions been actually able to reach a C#, my problem is with my transition between my chest voice and my head voice. Knowing that this is my current problem I plan to continue doing various vocal exercises such as sirening and arpeggios to smooth over my vocal transitions.