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WARM-UPS
Good posture is very important if you want to get the best out of your and your students' voices. When you are going to sing,
watch that the students are in a position of minimum tension and maximum flexibility with ears directly over shoulders, shoulders
over your hips. Ask them to check that they can still see their shoulders out of their peripheral vision.
1. GOOD POSTURE - An exercise for practising is to have students pretend they are all puppets dangling on a single string
attached to the top of their heads.
Be conscious of how you and your students breathe. Deep breathing is essential for safe, healthy, effective voice production.
When you breathe in, aim to feel as if you take in air as low down in your body as possible without your shoulders having
to rise. Allow tummy muscles to relax outwards as you breathe in.
2. PROPER BREATHING - Begin your singing with exercices that focus on proper breathing. Panting like a dog or holding hands
on the diaphram to feel it expanding outward while breathing in deeply are two such exercises.
After that it's time for a gentle vocal warm-up.
3. VOCAL WARM-UP - First, ask students to massage their faces, lips, and throat to relax tension. Have the class hum an "m"
sound gently up and down their voice range to to start the vocal warm-up.
Then, sing a series of round open vowels such as "Mmmeee-Mmmay-Mmmah-Mmmoe-Mmmoo" on one note and then repeating moving up
and down the scale.
Check breathing - relax your tummy muscles outwards as you take a breath in.
These exercises will insure properly warmed-up voices. you will be amazed how these simple exercises will make voices (including
your own!) sound alive and free.
Excerpt taken from MusicKit.com
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