My Vocal Practice Routine: Things That Help Keep Me Consistent When Life Gets Hectic
I am no stranger to changes in practice routines, since I started vocal training about 15 years ago I have gone through many different types of practice routines that all served separate purposes in terms of what I was asking of my voice at the time. One of the biggest challenges of the last few years has been navigating a vocal practice routine as a working professional instead of a full time student. Because of this change I have had to find ways to keep my practice routine consistent, but not stagnant, that still gives me the ability to work towards newer vocal goals and styles while maintaining what I use most often in my day to day life (my speaking voice and my chest voice).
DISCLAIMER: This is my personal routine, and what in my experience has worked for me and my voice. Vocal routines are not one size fits all and require individual thought, planning, and action (sometimes alongside a professional in this area). This is in no way meant to be a prescriptive vocal routine as everyone’s voices are different and have different needs. Please do not continue to do anything in your vocal routine that hurts or is uncomfortable in any way and consult a professional in your area.
I knew when I started crafting this practice routine that I wanted to have 3 short, to the point sessions that I could use each day so that I wasn’t relying on isolating my vocal routine from the rest of my day. I use my voice in a speaking capacity as well as in a singing capacity every single day so my routine needs to be able to fluidly integrate into my schedule and allow me to check and re-connect with my voice at different points during the day.
The first session is the warm-up. This is typically between 10-30 minutes in the morning and I usually start this when I wake up with body and breathing warmups. To make this part of my daily routine I stretch when I get out of bed in the morning and I associate things like brushing my teeth and putting lotion on my face with doing some deep breathing and some gentle and light humming to start vocalizing. Between this and the more structured warmups I like to make sure that I’m hydrating and feeling for any tension especially in my neck and shoulders that may affect how my voice feels.
For the structured part of my warm ups I start with lip trills and straw exercises. I try to siren through my range at this point without pushing and noticing if there is anything that feels stuck or tired and navigating through those areas as best as I can with the siren exercise. Once I’m feeling a little more warm and grounded in my voice this is when I start to do open vowel scale exercises. I focus first on my chest voice, I love a 5 note ascending and descending scale on Ah, and I will only take this as high and as low as is comfortable at a medium volume. But, I do change this up if I’m feeling bored to a shorter scale (3 note ascending/descending) or even an arpeggio (1-3-5-3-1) on any vowel that feels good to me. To warm up the higher part of my range I tend to use arpeggiated scales that have an octave jump (1-3-5-8-5-3-1) on any vowel. My goal here is to work through that break between chest and head voice without any worry about if it sounds “nice” or “smooth”. If my voice wants to flip and it is comfortable for me to do so then I will let it flip, for me, warming up my head voice while still grounding it to my chest voice makes me feel more connected to my entire range instead of just segmented pieces of it. If I know I’m going to be using more of my head voice, I’ll take the last part of my warm-up session to do some scales in my head voice, I like ahh again for opening up my head voice in the mornings usually on either a 5 or 8 note scale, and I will only go as far up as is comfortable.
The 2nd to the point session I will do at any point in the day if I need a little vocal pick-me-up or I just want my voice to open up a little more. This is usually very short and consists of to the point exercises like sirens on a very bright wah (almost like a imitating a baby crying) and articulation/diction exercises (I like to switch this up and do any tongue twister I can think of, from Sally sells sea shells to how much wood could a woodchuck, etc.). I may also follow this with some light humming depending on how I’m feeling. This keeps me energized and gives me some time in the middle of my day to check-in on my voice and warm up more towards the edges of my range after my warm-ups and some speaking/singing in the morning.
The last session I do is at the end of the night. This routine is intertwined with my bedtime routine and it is, as you could probably guess, my cool down. For my cool down I focus on easy light exercises like light hums, lip trills and straw phonation exercises that I will start in my head voice, at a comfortable pitch at a low volume and doesn’t feel difficult. I will then descend down in the exercises so the last notes I sing are on the lower end of my range. After this is complete I do my best not to talk for the rest of the night, and make sure that I’m hydrating before bed as well.
Thank you for reading through my Vocal Practice Routine: Things That Help Keep Me Consistent When Life Gets Hectic. I personally enjoyed writing this because I didn’t realize just how much of a routine I have been able to get myself into after school as someone who can sometimes have difficulty maintaining and being consistent in routines (maybe that will be a story for another time). I hope you’ll stick around on my website for things to come as I’m still working on creating and updating this website! Thank you for being here! The world is better with you in it!
Sarah
