"I NEVER WARM UP"

We've all heard of a singer who allegedly never warms up, right? I've even heard a couple celebrity singers say this and it makes me cringe a little bit. Not in a judgmental way... well, maybe a little lol.... let me explain. Serious/athletic singing without warming up isn't a special achievement nor is it a sign of skill. Since this is my blog and our safe space I can speak freely, right? Damn right. It's dangerous, it's reckless, it's careless, and if you're an aspiring or already professional voice user it's irresponsible. It just is. Would you go to the gym and immediately lift your heaviest weight?

There's a reason why professional dancers stretch before rehearsing. There's a reason why Olympic gymnasts run laps around the floor and start their workouts with lower impact skills gradually working up to their most challenging skills. Singers are vocal athletes. If the concept of stretching and warming up makes sense for the biggest muscles in your body then surely it's fit for our tiny, pinky fingernail-sized vocal folds, right? Right.

So what's the point of a vocal warm up? A proper warm up helps your folds vibrate in a balanced way and with less extraneous muscular involvement. Just like an athlete warms up to increase the flow of blood and oxygen in their bodies a singer warms up to increase blood flow to and through the vocal folds before the heavy workload. Just like a dancer stretches their body a singer stretches their vocal folds to improve range of motion during a performance. A good warm up also helps you optimize the coordination of the strength and flexibility muscles of the voice. Our vocal folds vibrate hundreds to more than a thousand times per second... PER SECOND! That's an insane amount of "work" and an effective warm up routine helps you reduce the risk of injury and recovery time. I've been singing my whole life but now, an undisclosed number of decades later (*blinks*), I have more range, stamina, power, agility, versatility, choices, and vocal freedom than ever! The habit of warming up can mean the difference between singing for a few years and singing well for the rest of your life!

WARM UP YOUR VOICES!!!