Never begin singing until you've done a warm-up.
Vocal warm-ups are essential for a good performance as well as for keeping your singing equipment in excellent working order. When you sing you use your lips, jaw, larynx, diaphragm, tongue and lungs. You wouldn't start lifting heavy weights without stretching. Nor should you attempt to exercise your vocal muscles without warming up.
Deep Breathing
Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Relax your shoulders and straighten your back. Breath in through your nose, using your diaphragm to bring in the air. Hold the intake of breath for five seconds and slowly exhale through your mouth.
Yawning
Yawning stretches your mouth muscles and warms up your larynx.
Open your mouth and take in a lung-filling mouthful of air. Let the air hit the back of your throat and simply think about yawning. Typically imitating the yawning gesture while thinking about it will make you yawn.
Mouth Stretches
Stretch your mouth as far as it is comfortable to do so.
Start the warm-up by opening and closing your mouth into an "O" shape. Hold the "O" shape and transform it into an "Ahh" shape. Repeat the process for no less than 30 seconds.
"Motorcycle Lips"
Breath in deeply and then blow out.
Purse your lips and blow. Let your lips wobble against each other as if you are making motorcycle noises. Don't blow too hard, just enough to make your lips tingle. The exhaling element of this exercise continues the good work from the breathing exercises. The rapid movement of your lips warms up the muscles of your mouth.
Humming
Close your mouth, breathe in and hum. Start off humming the lowest note that you can produce. Hold the note until you become short of breath. Quickly inhale and hum at a slightly higher pitch. Work your way through your entire vocal range until you reach the highest note you can make. Then reverse the exercise by starting off at the highest note and move your way down.
Scales
Find a note in the middle of your vocal range. If you are unsure, repeat the humming exercise and identify the note that is the most comfortable to make for a prolonged period. This is your starting note. Run through an ascending major scale starting at that note, using the "Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do" pattern. When you hit the top note, reverse the scale. Then repeat the scale pattern, but start from the second note of the scale; this is "Re" from the first scale. Repeat the scale, moving up in pitch each time until you reach the top of your vocal range. Then return to the starting note and work your way down in pitch.
Tags: your mouth, your lips, through your, vocal range, your vocal