Warmup Exercises

Coaches Tips: What makes a good warm up?

Exercising is just as important for voices as for the rest of our bodies. When we want to increase our physical abilities we simply have to exercise. The same goes for our singing voices. When we warm up our voices before singing, we avoid the dangers of straining our voices or damaging our vocal chords.

Our vocal chords are just two strips of soft tissue, located within the larynx. This area together with our breath is responsible for all our vocal sound, so it’s important that we develop and care for it properly. Just as we need to stretch and relax the muscles before we run or lift weights, we need to warm up our voices. Warming up loosens those crucial muscles, reduces the risk of injury and can sometimes even help to remove excess mucous! (Eeeew! Better out than in!) ;-)


Vocal exercises will help us look after your precious singing voices whilst giving you increased technical vocal abilities.

An effective vocal warm up, should begin with gentle exercises, not loud in volume and it should allow only a small amount of air to pass through the vocal cords.

If you’ve attended any of my group or one-to-one sessions, you will know that I find humming a perfect tool for this. Humming and our fun, effective ascending and descending “trills” are great ways to do this. These are also great tools for “warming down” after a lot of singing (or even after a lot of talking if you have to use your voice a lot at work).

After your gentle warm up, you can then introduce more air flow and produce sounds and vowels. This will help with singing real words and those catchy “House” phrases that we love.

When you have completed your gentle humming warm ups, simply select any of the vocal warm ups provided here to help you build your skills and accuracy.

Here you will find a mix of traditional and contemporary House-styled warm-up guide tracks. In each of your practice sessions, start with the easier warm ups first and build your way up.

Some of the exercises here will help you with tonal accuracy, vocal agility, increasing range and breath control. The exercises will serve different purposes but all will help you develop a stronger singing voice.

Watch your skills grow! :-)