May 26, 2025 • 53 mins
Crappy voice day? Same. We all experience them from time to time. Let me walk you through what I do when my voice feels stiff, heavy, tired or just off. Whether you’re coming off a long day of singing, didn’t sleep well, or forgot to do a cooldown the day before, this gentile yet extensive warm-up is for you.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Oh thank you.
Oh, that was great.
So inhaling through
the yarn really helpful.
Let's get.
Oh
oh.
Oh, one more time now I feel like
oh my gosh,
I have too much breath in my lungs.
So I want to make sure
I'm not over breathing.
(00:22):
Oh,
Hey, VoxStar,
and welcome to From Singer To Artist.
I'm Lara
Chapman, award winning
singer and songwriter
turned viral vocal coach
(00:42):
and the host of this show
at VoxTape Studios.
We help singers
from all over the world
level up their voices
by teaching them
the three fundamental skills
all singers need
technique, awareness and artistry.
Whether you're looking to go pro
or just develop your voice for fun.
My team and I are here to help.
Check the link in the description
to book your first session, or grab
(01:02):
some of our other resources.
All righty.
Are you ready? Let's get started.
seem to
just, you know, get into that flow of,
you know, singing your songs.
And today is one of those days for me.
(01:23):
My voice is feeling stiff.
It's feeling heavy.
And I already know
it's going to need quite a bit more love
than it usually would to get warmed up
so that I can still,
you know,
use my voice for the day,
whether that's a performance
or just a practice session.
But I do know I need a longer,
(01:43):
more extensive, more in-depth warm up.
And that's what we're going to do today.
We're going to warm up together,
and this is going to be a more extensive
warm up than what I would normally do.
So if you two are feeling
a little vocally tired, a little stiff,
just a little off,
then you know, it might be good
to invest
(02:04):
that extra time
to really get your voice warmed up
before you start vaulting
or performing
or whatever it is
that you're trying to do with your voice,
because then that could lead
to quite a bit of tension.
And we definitely don't want that.
before we dig into the actual warm up,
I want to quickly
talk about
why you could be feeling this way.
For me,
(02:25):
it was because I was
filming all day yesterday,
and I was doing a lot of singing
and a lot of talking,
and stupid little me
didn't do a vocal cool down.
And cooldowns can be really helpful
to just kind of
get your voice into shape
for the next day.
And I unfortunately skipped that.
Lesson learned. Don't do that again.
(02:46):
So yeah, it could be
because you had a vocally heavy day
the day before.
It could be because of a lack of sleep
or stress or dehydration
or you just not feeling that great today,
or just a myriad of reasons.
Honestly,
the voice is unique as an instrument
(03:06):
in the sense of we're
always battling
with a certain level of inconsistency
because your instrument is your body.
So things like lack of sleep
and dehydrate and stress
and getting sick and all of these things
do affect your instrument.
So that's why we struggle
with a little bit of inconsistency
sometimes compared to
(03:27):
when we're playing piano or guitar
or of course, you know,
sometimes our fingers feel a little stiff
there too, but not nearly
to the level
as we feel the inconsistency in singing.
so whenever you are feeling this way
and you know,
you're like, oh,
my voice is just not where it is usually.
Be gentle with yourself
(03:48):
and be patient with yourself.
I know that is very hard.
Especially, you know,
if you are a perfectionist
or especially if you have a gig
that you need to get to, you're like,
no, not today.
Why is my voice out of all days
failing me today?
So, you know, be gentle with yourself.
Take it slow, feel into your body.
(04:09):
Pay attention to what
singing feels like
rather than what making these sounds
sounds like.
And, Yeah. Just take it easy. Be gentle.
Okay,
so let's
actually do our nice little warmup.
So we're going to start with
just feeling into our body
and see
where am I feeling any sort of tightness.
(04:29):
So for me I felt quite tight in my back
earlier today.
So what I did was just a couple
roll ups, you know, like standing up,
folding forward
and then slowly but gently, vertebra
by vertebrae roll back up to standing.
And I did that a couple times,
and that already helped me
a lot to just feel
a little bit better
(04:50):
in my spine, in my back.
So for you figure out,
are you feeling any tension in your body
and then especially in your face,
are you feeling any tension in your face?
So for me, I tend to hold
quite a bit of tension in my jaw.
So what I like to do on these days,
where I need a little bit of extra
(05:11):
love, is
just take my fists,
my knuckles,
push them between my cheekbone up
here and my jawbone down here.
Okay,
so right in between,
as close to my ear as possible.
So not up here, right by my cheek,
but further back, close to my ears.
And then just start massaging here
(05:34):
if you want.
You can start sighing to it as well,
but not something like,
you know, already, like crazy range
or anything like that.
Really more just like,
you know, just kind of
like letting go some side, okay?
You don't have to.
You can really just stay here
(05:54):
and massage,
and definitely
feeling it
on super, super, super bad days.
I'm even feeling this in my temples
up here too. So today.
Yeah.
Okay, I know I do feel it a little.
It's not too bad, but I do feel it in
my temples up here.
So I would just go in
(06:14):
and massage here slightly as well.
But today that's not too bad.
So just, you know,
everybody feels it differently.
Figure out
where are you feeling your attention.
So for me it's more the jaw.
Yeah, definitely.
I'm feeling it here.
My masseter
muscle is what this is called.
That big muscle
that's responsible for opening
and closing your jaw for chewing. Right?
(06:37):
That muscle right here is a little tense
and tight for me today.
Another thing I like doing is
take my index finger
and underneath my earlobe,
go and push in there against my jaw,
bone and muscle.
And so just pushing in here and holding
while keeping my mouth open,
not completely closing your mouth.
(06:58):
Just, keep that mouth open to,
you know, drop it open.
However much feels comfortable for you,
you don't have to go, like,
like super big open, but just
drop that jaw open.
I'm not even moving my fingers.
I'm just pushing in here.
Oh my goodness. Okay.
And then another thing I can do
(07:19):
is just drag my fingers, then down,
around the corner of my jaw bone,
you know, like, underneath your earlobe.
If you just keep following down
that jaw bone,
you feel that corner there.
So I like to just stretch
or, like, massage.
(07:39):
Slide down there with my index finger.
You can take two fingers
to whatever feels good to you.
Just kind of massaging here.
So that's what I like to do with my
with my jaw for my tongue.
You can either take a paper towel
and do some tongue stretches.
(08:01):
What I've been doing recently
is actually taking a little skewer
and pushing that underneath my tongue.
It gives me more of a stretch
than the paper towel.
So if you have, like, a skewer
or a thin pencil or pen
or just something thin
that you can put underneath your tongue,
(08:22):
that's sturdy
because we don't want it to like,
you know, bend or anything like this,
and then I just
lock that in underneath my tongue.
So I'm pushing, I'm
putting it on my bottom teeth
and then curl my
tongue around it like this.
And then I'm
locking in the
tip of my tongue
behind my bottom teeth to just,
(08:43):
you know, lock that skewer into place.
And then all I need to do
is just stay here.
What I want to make sure
is that I am relaxing my jaw and my lips.
Okay, so not like this.
That's not relaxed.
(09:06):
If you're watching the video,
you can definitely tell
the difference, right?
So just dropping the jaw open
and relaxing the lips
and the entire face,
and then just breathe here.
(09:28):
I'm focusing on pushing my tongue
forward a little bit as well
so that, you know,
I'm really feeling that stretch
in the back of my tongue.
And last but not least, for my neck.
What I like to do as well is just,
kind of like,
anchor
my collarbone with my opposite arm.
(09:48):
So if I'm using my right
collarbone, I'm using my left arm
to push down that collarbone
and the muscles
attached to it, of course,
and then look sideways and up
to really feel that stretch
in the side of my neck here.
So I kind of like, have to play around
with the position of my neck
(10:09):
to feel like, okay, where am I
feeling the stretch the most?
For me, that's right here.
I'm feeling it
right down here where
I'm holding down that collarbone.
If you want to get that stretch
even deeper,
push your chin up and forward.
Kind of like creating an underbite
like this and look up and sideways,
(10:32):
and then you can feel
that stretch even deeper.
And then obviously,
the other side as well.
So left collarbone with your right hand.
Hold it down,
tilt your head to the side and up
till you find that right position
where you feel the stretch the most.
Push your jaw forward.
If you want a deeper stretch.
(10:56):
And then you feel that on
the side of your neck.
And so, you know, play around with that.
See
where are you feeling the tightest
and the most tension.
And just do some stretching
and relax into these stretches.
Once you're done with that,
we actually get to singing yay!
So sometimes
if I'm not sitting at a piano,
(11:16):
what I actually like to do
is just humming.
And exploring my range.
But because I'm sitting
in front of a piano
and to make it a little bit easier
for you to follow along too as well,
we're actually going to do this
on a scale.
You do want to start
wherever your voice feels
the most comfortable
(11:37):
and not like already in a range
where it's like,
oh my God,
this is already difficult to do.
So we're going to start down here.
And just humming over a fifth
knee,
keeping
it really light, and not,
(11:59):
that's already too much.
And then we just go up and again,
keep it light.
You.
You focus on that breath flow.
(12:21):
You
you do
you.
Blue,
blue.
(12:44):
So light blue.
One more
blue.
Great. And now here.
We're not super high at all yet.
I'm staying in my comfortable range.
Now that I've reached,
you know, the
the end of my range where I'm like, okay,
(13:05):
you know,
I would have to start
putting in more effort
to get these notes out.
I'm going to pause there and just,
just hum
down, slide, slow side down on a hum.
You,
(13:31):
already I'm feeling
the mucus on my vocal folds,
wanting to vibrate loose, essentially.
So if you are feeling like
you have to clear your throat
instead of going like,
that's not that great,
that
is a little scratchy
for your vocal folds.
What I like to do
is just swallow a bunch
(13:53):
that will also sometimes, like,
get that mucus out,
like off of your vocal folds
and then, you know,
away,
and,
you know, down into
your digestive system,
just getting that mucus off that way
rather than doing that kind of stuff.
Okay.
But I'm feeling it.
You know, my might even sound weird
(14:14):
if I'm like, like doing any sort of
vocal exercise that phlegm might,
you know, come loose even more.
And then it kind of makes me sound weird.
That is all a part of the process.
If you're dehydrated, then you feel extra
phlegm on your vocal folds,
because that's a way for your vocal folds
(14:35):
to protect themselves.
They create this extra layer of mucus
of phlegm
to protect themselves
so that they're not so dry.
And so if you are dehydrated,
you're going to feel more of that
than when you're not dehydrated.
So I'm going to take
a little bit of water.
To make sure that I can stay hydrated.
Obviously
this does not touch my vocal folds.
(14:58):
Like as you're drinking,
it takes time for your body
to absorb that water.
So this means I didn't drink enough
water yesterday,
and I'm now
feeling the consequences of that today.
Right.
So if you are preparing for performance,
make sure you drink a ton of water
the day before.
All right.
So that's humming.
The next thing I like to do
(15:19):
is some sort of SVT exercise.
So it stands for semi occluded
vocal tract.
And basically what that means is
there's just a really small
opening in your mouth,
and most of the sound
gets pushed back down into your vocal,
into your vocal tract,
reducing your phonation
threshold pressure.
(15:40):
Another fancy word.
Basically what that means is
it takes less effort to create sound,
which don't. We all just love that.
So there's a couple different things
you can do.
The most famous SVT sound is gloss per
another one would be the
(16:01):
puffer fish or the blowfish,
where you're
inflating your cheeks a lot
and just have a very small opening
where the sound comes out
and it's still coming out of your mouth,
not your nose. Blue.
So if I close my nose like this, you.
I can still get that sound out
through a tiny opening and my lips,
but again, my cheeks are inflated
(16:22):
like a puffer fish or blowfish.
Okay,
then you can also do tongue trills like a
or a raspberry.
There's a lot of different options
that you can do for today.
I'm going to get out my risotto
by Ray box,
to,
you know, just do some straw phonation.
I really enjoy straw phonation.
(16:42):
I like it a lot.
It really helped me
get my voice back
when I had a vocal injury,
when I had vocal nodules.
So I love my Arizona,
so I'm going to use that.
But it's up to you.
Whatever kind of sweet sound
you want to use.
Totally fine with me.
So here
I could do the same thing and just go,
ooh, that kind of stuff.
(17:04):
But again,
we're going to do it
on a scale for today.
You can also take the straw
and do bubbles in water
to get even more of like that
massaging effect.
You don't have to use the Raven's
Arizona straw.
You can use any straw
if it has a big opening,
try and pinch it closed at the bottom
(17:25):
a little bit.
Not completely of course,
but just a little bit
to reduce the opening,
to feel more of that.
Slight effect.
Another thing you can do
is, you know,
if you have a metal straw,
it's just kind of like
whole,
like partially closed
the opening at the bottom,
with your finger.
So again, that the,
the opening basically becomes smaller
(17:45):
and you feel more of that back pressure.
I don't have to do that
because of the Arizona.
So anyways,
makes it just a little bit easier.
We're going to do this side over a fifth.
And then over an octave like this view.
So first I'm doing that
fifth slide like we did on humming.
(18:07):
And then I'm going
up to the entire octave as well.
Keep it nice and slidey between the notes
and not
but like this.
And again, we're still keeping it
super light and easy.
No pushing and no loud volume. Okay,
(18:28):
you
do.
You need
to do.
(18:54):
So.
One thing I just noticed
was my tongue
wanted to curl up a little bit
and retract
a little bit inside of my mouth.
I was like, oh, hold on,
let's not do that.
Keep that tone nice and relaxed.
Just the ball
at the bottom of your, of your mouth.
You.
(19:16):
You
see?
You okay?
I'm feeling myself
trying to push a little bit
for that volume.
I'm going to do that again
at a quieter volume.
Loom.
(19:43):
Me?
Me, me
me
again.
Me.
(20:09):
Okay, so up here,
I'm starting to feel like.
Okay, I'm pushing a little.
So whenever you're feeling that, as you
if you watched the video
or heard the episode on
how to practice with tracks,
you already know this.
But when you
whenever you start feeling like, oh,
hold on, I'm starting to push.
And when you're practicing with a track,
(20:30):
stay there until it's like,
okay, okay, this is feeling better.
And then keep going
rather than just blindly
following the track.
Oh, that was much better already.
Woo!
One more room okay.
(20:56):
We're going to go back down to
you here.
(21:17):
You
you,
Oops.
(21:39):
Room one I
yeah.
So down here we're obviously much lower
than where we started,
but I do like to explore
the high notes first
before I go down into my low notes,
just because I know
(21:59):
I have the tendency of having a voice
that is too heavy, too stiff.
Rather than lacking power.
So I always like to explore flexibility
and agility
and high notes first,
just to keep my voice light.
Talking about high notes.
Let's do that next.
So, we already went pretty high,
(22:22):
but now I want to get into
a territory.
Some people call it flagella.
Some people don't have a term for it.
It doesn't really matter.
Whatever it is you want to call
it is totally fine with me,
but we're just going to go up
into the stratosphere
a little bit,
and we're going to explore
this on the quietest, squeaky,
most tiniest
(22:43):
little sound that you can possibly make.
Because we don't want to push
for these high notes, but rather,
you know,
let the vocal folds stretch
long to get to the high notes. Okay.
So we're going to start singing
right here.
On a little o sound.
Okay. So
oh, the
(23:03):
opening in my lips is incredibly small.
It almost gives you
a little bit of that sweet effect
compared to. Whoo!
Whoo hoo hoo!
That would just be whoo!
But we're going a little smaller.
Oh, okay.
Keep it nice and small and quiet.
(23:24):
This is the most important part
about this exercise.
Keep it nice and quiet.
the exercise goes like this.
Oh, we're
jumping all over the board
a little bit on purpose
so that we're not,
you know, building up too much weight
and too much strength.
But we're keeping it light
because we're
literally bouncing all over the place
(23:45):
here a little bit.
So let's do that again.
Getting used to this scale.
001 time
whoop whoop whoop whoop whoop whoop.
Again.
Keep it nice and small and keep it light.
let's do the exercise together.
Ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
ooh ooh ooh
(24:08):
ooh ooh
ooh hoo hoo hoo hoo.
Really use those ages.
Hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo.
Rather than whoo hoo hoo hoo!
There's no age there.
All right,
so every time you start
the notes re attack with that h.
Whoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo!
To get the breath slow.
(24:29):
Going without getting louder.
Hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo
hoo hoo!
Whoop whoop!
Woo!
Hoo hoo hoo hoo!
Boo
hoo hoo!
(24:51):
Woo!
I'm going to do this one
one more time,
because I feel like
it could have felt 5% easier.
Woo woo woo.
One more time. Woo!
Ooh.
They go oh!
(25:11):
Ooh!
Hear how this does not sound pretty.
It sounds kind of squeaky.
That's the whole purpose
of this exercise. Again.
More time.
(25:32):
To.
Do.
That was flat.
Try again.
Woo!
Whoo hoo!
Whoo!
Okay, I hear how I'm consistently
going a little flat on this. Top notes.
(25:52):
Now we are on C sharp six.
We are very high up here.
And so I'm like,
okay, I'm not ready to give up on it yet.
I tried three times.
I'm not ready
yet, though, to give up on it.
So I'm going to start
making adjustments to
what I'm trying to do here.
So I'm going to use
just a little bit more of that.
Russell I'm going to lean into those H
is a little more
(26:12):
fancy.
Whoo!
Now that was all the way up on the note.
Now I'm going to try that one more time.
Reduce the volume by 5%.
This.
Is the first one.
(26:34):
I was better than this one.
One more time is.
Okay, I'm starting to feel
a little closed off in my throat.
Maybe my neck
muscles are engaging a little bit,
so I'm going to just shake my head loose.
Ooh, that felt better.
One more thing I want to do.
(26:54):
Just a tendency that I have is
my larynx tends to get stuck too
high a little.
So I'm going to inhale through a yawn
to start with a neutral larynx.
Of course, we're incredibly high, meaning
your larynx will be much higher
than where it normally would be.
That is totally normal. Okay.
But again, for me,
I just know that my larynx tends
to get just a little stuck
(27:15):
and my neck muscles start engaging.
And it's just again,
it gives me that stuck feeling.
So I know that about my cell
so that I can make changes.
So I'm like, okay.
Inhaling through a yawn before
I get started and shaking my head loose
and seeing if that helps.
Oh thank you.
Oh, that was great.
So inhaling through
(27:35):
the yarn really helpful.
Let's get.
Oh
oh.
Oh, one more time now I feel like
oh my gosh,
I have too much breath in my lungs.
So I want to make sure
I'm not over breathing.
Oh, so close.
(27:59):
Oh.
Oh.
Oh, no.
I already felt from the beginning
that that one was not going to be it.
One more time.
For.
Oh, okay.
So we're on E6 here.
Almost there. Not quite.
I'm like okay, this is high enough.
I already feel very different
(28:19):
now when I'm speaking,
my voice feels much less heavy
because I'm so used to the stretch.
Now all we got to do is now go back down.
Oh, we're going to go down
and have some small rubber for some.
000.
Oh, oh.
(28:40):
Oh.
Oh, use the breath, Laura.
Oh
oh, that's a lot better
with a little.
Oh.
Oh oh.
(29:01):
Oh oh.
Oh oh.
Oh oh.
Oh.
Woo woo
woo woo woo
(29:23):
woo woo woo woo woo.
Oh there you go okay. Nice.
So again with this
the goal is to go
as humanly high as possible
for you specifically right.
Whatever that is for you.
But did you see like I started
feeling like oh okay.
Hold on
I need to make some adjustments around
B-flat. This note right here.
(29:44):
But I went all the way up to E six.
Couldn't really get that one.
I got the E flat,
not really the E today,
which is totally fine.
That's where I'm at today,
which is great.
But, you know, like, don't start
giving up as soon as you're like,
okay, hold on.
This is starting to feel weird.
I'm going to go turn
back around like, no, stay here.
Try again and again
(30:05):
and again and make adjustments.
Breathe in through a yarn
to reset that larynx.
Shake your head loose.
Hold into your
like your fists, into your jaw.
Whatever it is
that you need to do to start to,
you know, making some adjustments
to get the notes out
a little bit more easily.
If after try 5 to 7, it's
still not quite there,
(30:25):
turn around and
and call it a day for that specific
exercise up there. Okay.
But again, keep trying.
Stay there.
Try again, again and again and again
before you give up.
All right.
Next up, we have an agility exercise.
So this
exercise that we did,
the hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo.
It's kind of agility already
(30:47):
because we're jumping all over the board
a little bit.
But I do want to
do another exercise again
because today is an extra bad voice day.
So I want to go
that extra
mile and do another agility exercise.
long, long, long long, long, long, long,
also kind of helps me with my
tongue as well, which is nice.
(31:08):
And same thing here.
I'm jumping all over the board
and I want to keep it pretty quick.
No no no no no no no.
Then I'm not really working on agility.
Nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah
nah nah nah nah nah nah.
So it's ng to like normal na na na.
The only thing that's moving in my face
(31:30):
is my tongue in the back.
It goes from
touching the roof of my mouth
to releasing, to touching,
to releasing, to touching, to releasing.
Right? So no no no no no no no no no.
That's the only movement I'm doing here.
I'm not moving my jaw at all.
so let's try together.
Na na na na na na na na na na na na
na na na na na na na na na na na na.
(31:54):
You're hitting that top note six times.
Na na na na na na
na na na na na na na na na.
It's easy.
La la la la
la la la la la la la la la la
la la la la la la la la la la la la.
Don't slow dans la la la
la la la la la la la la la la la
(32:16):
la la la la la la la la la la la
la la la la la.
So here I'm getting a little more mixy.
And now la la la la.
You know, like,
that's not the purpose of this exercise.
We want to keep it light and agile.
La la la la la la la la
la la la la la la la la la
la la la la la la la la la la la la la.
(32:38):
Feeling a little Fleming.
La la la la la la la la la la la la la la
la la la la la la
la la la la la la
la la la la la la la la la la la la la.
Oh, I was awful, but,
they sounded awful. But that's okay.
We're paying attention to what
(32:58):
singing feels like
rather than what it sounds like.
So I'm like, right in my break here.
Top note is C5.
Yeah, C5.
So it's like, oh my gosh, one more time.
La la la la nah nah nah
nah nah nah nah nah nah.
That's a little more head dominant.
But I'm going to stick to that for now.
La la la la
la la la la la la la la la la la.
(33:20):
Na na na na na na na na na na na na na.
La la la la la la la la la
la la la la la.
Ling a ling.
Ling a ling a
ling a ling ling a one more.
The ling a ling a ling a ling.
La la la la.
Okay,
so the trickiest part for me
(33:41):
is that transition, right?
Like where we're getting more
mixy, more head dominant.
So, you know, just keeping it light
there is
is key for me here
with this agility exercise.
But this is just kind of like
an extra thing. Not super necessary.
But I like to do some more agility
exercises like this
when I have a pretty typical day.
(34:03):
But let's move on.
Let's actually do okay.
So two different ways you can do this.
One, you can either do it
on a tongue bite,
meaning you just stick out your tongue
and you gently bite on it.
E like this
E make sure that your tongue is flat
and round,
not thick and pointy,
flat and round instead.
(34:23):
Or we can go back to that skewer.
If you have a skewer,
put that underneath.
Your tongue.
Curl your tongue under,
lock it in behind your bottom teeth
and do it.
That way.
I'm going to do both
so that you can see and hear both.
I'm going to start with a tongue
bite, though.
on the scale here.
So just stick
(34:43):
out your tongue,
gently bite on it, or use that skewer.
What I'm going to do.
Because again,
I know my larynx tends to go
a little wild sometimes.
I'm going to actively try and lower
my larynx
while I am pushing out my tongue,
especially in the lower notes down here.
So it sounds like this new
(35:07):
you can see a little bit
more of that dopey
sound compared to you.
So again, I'm
going to focus on pushing my larynx down.
You can do whatever feels right to me.
Louie, Louie,
Louie Louie
(35:32):
Louie me.
So again, keep going here.
I'm just for the sake of demonstrating.
Going to use my skewer
now instead of pushing,
biting on my tongue.
Who who,
(35:53):
Who did
you hear
all the,
Lou?
Lou.
You.
(36:14):
Lou.
Through the Lou I was terrible.
Let's try that again.
Lou.
Lou, I'm feeling my larynx.
(36:37):
Really?
Just kind of like,
squeezing down
because of my neck muscles.
So I'm going to switch
to my tongue, bite me
one more time.
Boom. There you go.
That was a lot better.
So we're on a here.
And when we did the
exercise, we went all the way up to E,
which is a lot higher than this.
(36:58):
Yet even like
even though this is a lot lower here,
I'm feeling
my muscles wanting to just,
start to engage, so.
Oh, Lou, there you go.
That was a lot better
just, you know,
shaking everything loose for me,
just using my,
like, just looking side
to side, shaking my head
(37:20):
really helps for me.
You play around with it,
whatever feels best for you.
But, yeah,
this tongue bite
or with the skewer in
or even with,
you know,
paper towel stretching
and holding your tongue
as you're doing this.
If you're doing the skewer
and the skewer keeps dropping,
that's a pretty good indicator
that,
there is some tongue tension going on.
So really focus on
(37:40):
pushing that tongue forward
so that your it's not trying to retract,
which is what makes that skewer drop.
Okay.
So that just means you need to work on
releasing tongue
tension a little bit more,
which is exactly what
this exercise is for.
So just keep at it, okay? You got it.
All righty.
So far,
all the exercises that we have done
are pretty closed off.
(38:01):
And now it's time to
start opening up a little bit more.
So we're going to do,
we're going to start here
minimum.
Oh we're just going through
all the vowels minimum.
Oh, keep your jaw relaxed
and your face boring.
(38:24):
Maybe more more
more minimum.
Almost minimum.
Oh, minimum.
Oh, minimum.
(38:46):
You leave them.
Almost leave him.
Oh, there you go.
I started
finding that next one more time.
Me minimum.
Oh, he minimum.
(39:09):
Oh, it feels stuck.
One more time.
Minimum of.
Oh, it's a little better.
Minimum.
Oh.
Oh, this is just, again,
right over that break.
The hardest part in your range?
(39:29):
For most people, at least for me.
Me, my mom.
You know, leave him.
You remem,
of all women,
(39:50):
who leave him.
Who maybe the mom
who had,
you know, one more.
He did.
(40:10):
Maybe you or someone
were, like, super high.
It's difficult
to really get those vowel out vowels out.
Just like minimum almo.
It turns a little bit more into my
my mom or,
I just totally fine, you know,
we make adjustments
as we move through the range.
But I like doing this
(40:31):
kind of exercise to just start opening up
and see how's
my voice feeling
now that it's a little bit more,
a little bit more open?
Yeah. Today it just.
It feels really dry.
It just feels really dry.
And that's okay.
That's where we're at today.
That's why
we're doing this video today to know.
Okay, what can we do to help with this
as much as possible.
I want to start
(40:51):
exploring my balance a little bit
and see where we're at with that.
So I don't want to start
like sustaining notes
or anything like that just yet.
I want to do, like a short, explosive
kind of,
staccato exercises to see, okay,
what's happening.
So, I today, let's do the pop exercise.
(41:12):
So pop pop pop.
So it's literally pop.
Like you're popping a balloon, right?
Pop pop pop.
Now, if your pitch starts
going all over the place
when you're doing this, don't worry.
That's very normal.
If you're not used to doing
staccato exercises,
staccato meaning short and and explosive.
So we don't want to go pop, pop, pop
or anything like that.
(41:32):
It's pop pup pup. It's nice and short.
Pup pup pup
pup pup pup
pup pup pup pup pup pup.
So here,
instead of
moving into like a softer mix,
I'm trying to stay,
a little bit more just dominant up here,
(41:53):
obviously without screaming.
Pup pup pup pup pup pup
pop pop pop pop pop pop
pop pop pop pop
pop pop pop pop bump bump
bump bump bump bump.
(42:15):
One more time.
That was a burp at the same time.
Excuse me and pop.
Pop.
Bup bup bup bup
bup bup bup.
I'm feeling my vocal folds.
Getting a little grabby.
And you can hear
almost like a little
fry coming through there.
So I'm going to do a quick little,
(42:36):
on a breathy voice.
Pop pop
pop pop pop pop pop pop,
hood pop pop pop.
No.
Not today that is not coming out today.
Which is fine.
(42:57):
Just where we're at today.
Keep going about pop pop
pop pop pop pop pop pop
pop pop pop pop pop pop
pop pop pop pop
pop pop pop pop pop pop.
One more. Pop pop pop.
(43:20):
So we went all the way up to E!
The E wasn't really quite there for me,
just fine. It's really high.
But I, what I can do here.
If I wanted to is, you know, like,
do some other exercises,
come back to this, and see.
Okay. Where are we at now?
Does it help at all?
But just for the sake of,
you know, making sure that this video
is not going to be an hour long,
(43:41):
it's might already be an hour long, but,
to keep it short,
I'm not going to do another,
belting exercise, but,
you know, stay here and see.
Okay. What's what's happening.
But don't do it for too long, okay?
We don't want to overdo it,
especially on days
where your voice isn't
feeling that great.
But now what we want to do
is like a little sustained exercise
which, oh, sweet baby
Jesus, this is where it gets hard.
(44:04):
So, I like to do something
like a fire,
a super bright,
a super open kind of sound.
Like for, like, apple,
but with a fat in front of it for for,
actually, we're gonna go
for, for five.
Oh. This is going to be hard.
(44:26):
Oh, we're not making it easy today.
Still feel the phlegm on my vocal folds
like trying to shake loose. There.
let's give it a try.
Seventh.
Fifth.
Five.
Fifth.
Fifth.
(44:49):
Fifth.
Five f.
Did you hear that?
My tone started changing halfway through
because it started
getting a little grippy.
One more time for,
for for, it starts out great.
(45:10):
And then as I'm holding it,
it starts gripping.
The, that was better for,
for the,
for s,
I don't know
if you're watching the video,
you can see me.
Kind of like pushing my elbows out.
(45:31):
I'm doing that to have,
like, a mental image
of opening up my throat,
because I know my tendency
is to just go
squeeze inside of my throat
and getting those vocal folds together
too tightly.
So if I'm pushing out my elbows,
it can help me feel like
a little more open.
I know it makes technically noise.
I'm sorry.
We where where we see some effort.
(45:55):
Oh, that was a little grippy.
I'm going to try and make it
a little more breathy
so that I'm using more breath flow for,
for for us.
Better for us.
No, that already started.
Not well or type of,
synthy,
(46:17):
hello vocal cracks.
Wasn't that beautiful?
One more time for,
50.
I'm going to keep going
and see what happens further
there.
That was better
until the very ending there.
But one more time The
(46:38):
is there
and yeah, I could make this mix here,
but I'm trying to explore more
t sound here on purpose.
Just, you know,
explore the power in my voice.
Where are we at? There.
And. Yeah, it's tricky.
It is tricky.
This exercise is difficult for me
either way.
When I'm feeling good or when I'm
not feeling good, like, vocally.
(47:00):
But, have a good day. Or not a good day.
But that's kind of the
the last thing that, that I do
when I do a vocal warmup is seeing
where are my sustains at.
And again, for me,
I just know my tendencies.
My vocal folds like to start gripping
as I'm sustaining notes.
So I'm thinking breathy voice.
I'm thinking create space in my throat,
and, you know, pushing
(47:21):
those elbows out in order to do that.
Shaking my head.
No, to,
you know,
make sure that those neck muscles
are not engaging
and maybe even working a little bit
on lowering my larynx to
to help with that.
Before we finish off
with a pop song exercise,
which is the last step,
I do want to go back to that,
usually
(47:41):
because, you know,
we were just doing a lot of belting,
which is a little bit heavier.
I want to go back to that.
Oh, sounds to see.
Excuse me, hiccups to see,
where are we at there.
And get the voice a little lighter again.
More.
(48:08):
Oh.
Excuse me.
Oh.
(48:35):
Oh.
Oh!
Whoo!
Okay, I'm going to pause it there.
I don't want to, like,
go crazy again with it
like we did the first time around.
But just again,
to get that stretch back
into my vocal folds and release
a little bit of that heaviness
(48:56):
in my voice.
And a last step.
Now let's do a pop
song exercise together.
Let's do Watermelon Sugar.
This is one of my favorite,
warm up style pop song exercises.
So without further ado,
let's just dig right in.
You're ready.
Let's go green.
You eat it all.
(49:21):
You watermelon sugar.
Up up up up up up up high
I just wanna taste it.
Tasting.
You eat it
all you want and then sugar up.
(49:44):
Hop hop hop hop hop hop hop
I just wanna taste it.
Tasted you?
Yeah.
You wanna try the song.
(50:04):
Dance on fire.
Really feel that bounce.
Turn you away I just wanna taste it.
Tasting you
shake your lips.
Ooh, keep your mouth moving here.
You should woo too much sugar.
Up up up up up up up up
(50:29):
I just wanna taste it.
Tasting you.
Hey.
Oh, what a man, sugar.
Up up up up up
up up high I just wanna taste it.
(50:52):
Tasting.
Ooh, you wanna move
sugar up high five.
Up up up high.
I just wanna taste it.
(51:12):
Tasting you to be.
Oh you wanna sugar
up, up high up up up
higher I just wanna taste it.
(51:32):
Tasting you.
You feel
warm and sugar.
Up up up higher up up up
higher I just wanna taste it.
(51:52):
Tasting
you be.
Yeah. Oh,
well I'm getting used to it.
But here again my pump up high
I just wanna taste it.
(52:13):
Tasted Okay.
That is it
for our very extensive warm up.
And I definitely feel much better
now than I did
when we started this warm up.
My voice feels a little lighter.
It feels definitely, like a lot
less heavy, more flexible,
and less phlegm.
There was quite a bit of phlegm for me
(52:34):
that came up as I was doing this warmup,
but I definitely feel
a little dehydrated today
in my vocal folds,
which is what makes them
just a little a little more stiff today
than I would like. But that's okay.
I'm just, you know, going through the day
with that in mind
and not overusing my voice
as much as possible.
Of course,
if you have to play a gig,
(52:54):
you got to do what you gotta do.
But just be gentle with yourself.
So I hope this was helpful.
I'm sorry
if you're having a bad voice day.
We all get those, okay?
Even the pros do even be on side
as we all get those days.
It's just important that we figure out
what can we do in order
to get our voices as
(53:15):
normal as possible.
Right?
Like us as normal,
meaning as close
to our regular voice state as possible.
So you know, the better
you know your voice, the,
you know, faster
you can get back to that.
Because you know what works for you.
And you know what?
It doesn't really make
a lot of sense for you. Okay?
But that is it for today's episode.
(53:38):
Thank you for watching and listening,
and I'll see you in the next one.
Oh thank you.
Oh, that was great.
So inhaling through
the yarn really helpful.
Let's get.
Oh
oh.
Oh, one more time now I feel like
oh my gosh,
I have too much breath in my lungs.
So I want to make sure
I'm not over breathing.
(00:22):
Oh,
Hey, VoxStar,
and welcome to From Singer To Artist.
I'm Lara
Chapman, award winning
singer and songwriter
turned viral vocal coach
(00:42):
and the host of this show
at VoxTape Studios.
We help singers
from all over the world
level up their voices
by teaching them
the three fundamental skills
all singers need
technique, awareness and artistry.
Whether you're looking to go pro
or just develop your voice for fun.
My team and I are here to help.
Check the link in the description
to book your first session, or grab
(01:02):
some of our other resources.
All righty.
Are you ready? Let's get started.
seem to
just, you know, get into that flow of,
you know, singing your songs.
And today is one of those days for me.
(01:23):
My voice is feeling stiff.
It's feeling heavy.
And I already know
it's going to need quite a bit more love
than it usually would to get warmed up
so that I can still,
you know,
use my voice for the day,
whether that's a performance
or just a practice session.
But I do know I need a longer,
(01:43):
more extensive, more in-depth warm up.
And that's what we're going to do today.
We're going to warm up together,
and this is going to be a more extensive
warm up than what I would normally do.
So if you two are feeling
a little vocally tired, a little stiff,
just a little off,
then you know, it might be good
to invest
(02:04):
that extra time
to really get your voice warmed up
before you start vaulting
or performing
or whatever it is
that you're trying to do with your voice,
because then that could lead
to quite a bit of tension.
And we definitely don't want that.
before we dig into the actual warm up,
I want to quickly
talk about
why you could be feeling this way.
For me,
(02:25):
it was because I was
filming all day yesterday,
and I was doing a lot of singing
and a lot of talking,
and stupid little me
didn't do a vocal cool down.
And cooldowns can be really helpful
to just kind of
get your voice into shape
for the next day.
And I unfortunately skipped that.
Lesson learned. Don't do that again.
(02:46):
So yeah, it could be
because you had a vocally heavy day
the day before.
It could be because of a lack of sleep
or stress or dehydration
or you just not feeling that great today,
or just a myriad of reasons.
Honestly,
the voice is unique as an instrument
(03:06):
in the sense of we're
always battling
with a certain level of inconsistency
because your instrument is your body.
So things like lack of sleep
and dehydrate and stress
and getting sick and all of these things
do affect your instrument.
So that's why we struggle
with a little bit of inconsistency
sometimes compared to
(03:27):
when we're playing piano or guitar
or of course, you know,
sometimes our fingers feel a little stiff
there too, but not nearly
to the level
as we feel the inconsistency in singing.
so whenever you are feeling this way
and you know,
you're like, oh,
my voice is just not where it is usually.
Be gentle with yourself
(03:48):
and be patient with yourself.
I know that is very hard.
Especially, you know,
if you are a perfectionist
or especially if you have a gig
that you need to get to, you're like,
no, not today.
Why is my voice out of all days
failing me today?
So, you know, be gentle with yourself.
Take it slow, feel into your body.
(04:09):
Pay attention to what
singing feels like
rather than what making these sounds
sounds like.
And, Yeah. Just take it easy. Be gentle.
Okay,
so let's
actually do our nice little warmup.
So we're going to start with
just feeling into our body
and see
where am I feeling any sort of tightness.
(04:29):
So for me I felt quite tight in my back
earlier today.
So what I did was just a couple
roll ups, you know, like standing up,
folding forward
and then slowly but gently, vertebra
by vertebrae roll back up to standing.
And I did that a couple times,
and that already helped me
a lot to just feel
a little bit better
(04:50):
in my spine, in my back.
So for you figure out,
are you feeling any tension in your body
and then especially in your face,
are you feeling any tension in your face?
So for me, I tend to hold
quite a bit of tension in my jaw.
So what I like to do on these days,
where I need a little bit of extra
(05:11):
love, is
just take my fists,
my knuckles,
push them between my cheekbone up
here and my jawbone down here.
Okay,
so right in between,
as close to my ear as possible.
So not up here, right by my cheek,
but further back, close to my ears.
And then just start massaging here
(05:34):
if you want.
You can start sighing to it as well,
but not something like,
you know, already, like crazy range
or anything like that.
Really more just like,
you know, just kind of
like letting go some side, okay?
You don't have to.
You can really just stay here
(05:54):
and massage,
and definitely
feeling it
on super, super, super bad days.
I'm even feeling this in my temples
up here too. So today.
Yeah.
Okay, I know I do feel it a little.
It's not too bad, but I do feel it in
my temples up here.
So I would just go in
(06:14):
and massage here slightly as well.
But today that's not too bad.
So just, you know,
everybody feels it differently.
Figure out
where are you feeling your attention.
So for me it's more the jaw.
Yeah, definitely.
I'm feeling it here.
My masseter
muscle is what this is called.
That big muscle
that's responsible for opening
and closing your jaw for chewing. Right?
(06:37):
That muscle right here is a little tense
and tight for me today.
Another thing I like doing is
take my index finger
and underneath my earlobe,
go and push in there against my jaw,
bone and muscle.
And so just pushing in here and holding
while keeping my mouth open,
not completely closing your mouth.
(06:58):
Just, keep that mouth open to,
you know, drop it open.
However much feels comfortable for you,
you don't have to go, like,
like super big open, but just
drop that jaw open.
I'm not even moving my fingers.
I'm just pushing in here.
Oh my goodness. Okay.
And then another thing I can do
(07:19):
is just drag my fingers, then down,
around the corner of my jaw bone,
you know, like, underneath your earlobe.
If you just keep following down
that jaw bone,
you feel that corner there.
So I like to just stretch
or, like, massage.
(07:39):
Slide down there with my index finger.
You can take two fingers
to whatever feels good to you.
Just kind of massaging here.
So that's what I like to do with my
with my jaw for my tongue.
You can either take a paper towel
and do some tongue stretches.
(08:01):
What I've been doing recently
is actually taking a little skewer
and pushing that underneath my tongue.
It gives me more of a stretch
than the paper towel.
So if you have, like, a skewer
or a thin pencil or pen
or just something thin
that you can put underneath your tongue,
(08:22):
that's sturdy
because we don't want it to like,
you know, bend or anything like this,
and then I just
lock that in underneath my tongue.
So I'm pushing, I'm
putting it on my bottom teeth
and then curl my
tongue around it like this.
And then I'm
locking in the
tip of my tongue
behind my bottom teeth to just,
(08:43):
you know, lock that skewer into place.
And then all I need to do
is just stay here.
What I want to make sure
is that I am relaxing my jaw and my lips.
Okay, so not like this.
That's not relaxed.
(09:06):
If you're watching the video,
you can definitely tell
the difference, right?
So just dropping the jaw open
and relaxing the lips
and the entire face,
and then just breathe here.
(09:28):
I'm focusing on pushing my tongue
forward a little bit as well
so that, you know,
I'm really feeling that stretch
in the back of my tongue.
And last but not least, for my neck.
What I like to do as well is just,
kind of like,
anchor
my collarbone with my opposite arm.
(09:48):
So if I'm using my right
collarbone, I'm using my left arm
to push down that collarbone
and the muscles
attached to it, of course,
and then look sideways and up
to really feel that stretch
in the side of my neck here.
So I kind of like, have to play around
with the position of my neck
(10:09):
to feel like, okay, where am I
feeling the stretch the most?
For me, that's right here.
I'm feeling it
right down here where
I'm holding down that collarbone.
If you want to get that stretch
even deeper,
push your chin up and forward.
Kind of like creating an underbite
like this and look up and sideways,
(10:32):
and then you can feel
that stretch even deeper.
And then obviously,
the other side as well.
So left collarbone with your right hand.
Hold it down,
tilt your head to the side and up
till you find that right position
where you feel the stretch the most.
Push your jaw forward.
If you want a deeper stretch.
(10:56):
And then you feel that on
the side of your neck.
And so, you know, play around with that.
See
where are you feeling the tightest
and the most tension.
And just do some stretching
and relax into these stretches.
Once you're done with that,
we actually get to singing yay!
So sometimes
if I'm not sitting at a piano,
(11:16):
what I actually like to do
is just humming.
And exploring my range.
But because I'm sitting
in front of a piano
and to make it a little bit easier
for you to follow along too as well,
we're actually going to do this
on a scale.
You do want to start
wherever your voice feels
the most comfortable
(11:37):
and not like already in a range
where it's like,
oh my God,
this is already difficult to do.
So we're going to start down here.
And just humming over a fifth
knee,
keeping
it really light, and not,
(11:59):
that's already too much.
And then we just go up and again,
keep it light.
You.
You focus on that breath flow.
(12:21):
You
you do
you.
Blue,
blue.
(12:44):
So light blue.
One more
blue.
Great. And now here.
We're not super high at all yet.
I'm staying in my comfortable range.
Now that I've reached,
you know, the
the end of my range where I'm like, okay,
(13:05):
you know,
I would have to start
putting in more effort
to get these notes out.
I'm going to pause there and just,
just hum
down, slide, slow side down on a hum.
You,
(13:31):
already I'm feeling
the mucus on my vocal folds,
wanting to vibrate loose, essentially.
So if you are feeling like
you have to clear your throat
instead of going like,
that's not that great,
that
is a little scratchy
for your vocal folds.
What I like to do
is just swallow a bunch
(13:53):
that will also sometimes, like,
get that mucus out,
like off of your vocal folds
and then, you know,
away,
and,
you know, down into
your digestive system,
just getting that mucus off that way
rather than doing that kind of stuff.
Okay.
But I'm feeling it.
You know, my might even sound weird
(14:14):
if I'm like, like doing any sort of
vocal exercise that phlegm might,
you know, come loose even more.
And then it kind of makes me sound weird.
That is all a part of the process.
If you're dehydrated, then you feel extra
phlegm on your vocal folds,
because that's a way for your vocal folds
(14:35):
to protect themselves.
They create this extra layer of mucus
of phlegm
to protect themselves
so that they're not so dry.
And so if you are dehydrated,
you're going to feel more of that
than when you're not dehydrated.
So I'm going to take
a little bit of water.
To make sure that I can stay hydrated.
Obviously
this does not touch my vocal folds.
(14:58):
Like as you're drinking,
it takes time for your body
to absorb that water.
So this means I didn't drink enough
water yesterday,
and I'm now
feeling the consequences of that today.
Right.
So if you are preparing for performance,
make sure you drink a ton of water
the day before.
All right.
So that's humming.
The next thing I like to do
(15:19):
is some sort of SVT exercise.
So it stands for semi occluded
vocal tract.
And basically what that means is
there's just a really small
opening in your mouth,
and most of the sound
gets pushed back down into your vocal,
into your vocal tract,
reducing your phonation
threshold pressure.
(15:40):
Another fancy word.
Basically what that means is
it takes less effort to create sound,
which don't. We all just love that.
So there's a couple different things
you can do.
The most famous SVT sound is gloss per
another one would be the
(16:01):
puffer fish or the blowfish,
where you're
inflating your cheeks a lot
and just have a very small opening
where the sound comes out
and it's still coming out of your mouth,
not your nose. Blue.
So if I close my nose like this, you.
I can still get that sound out
through a tiny opening and my lips,
but again, my cheeks are inflated
(16:22):
like a puffer fish or blowfish.
Okay,
then you can also do tongue trills like a
or a raspberry.
There's a lot of different options
that you can do for today.
I'm going to get out my risotto
by Ray box,
to,
you know, just do some straw phonation.
I really enjoy straw phonation.
(16:42):
I like it a lot.
It really helped me
get my voice back
when I had a vocal injury,
when I had vocal nodules.
So I love my Arizona,
so I'm going to use that.
But it's up to you.
Whatever kind of sweet sound
you want to use.
Totally fine with me.
So here
I could do the same thing and just go,
ooh, that kind of stuff.
(17:04):
But again,
we're going to do it
on a scale for today.
You can also take the straw
and do bubbles in water
to get even more of like that
massaging effect.
You don't have to use the Raven's
Arizona straw.
You can use any straw
if it has a big opening,
try and pinch it closed at the bottom
(17:25):
a little bit.
Not completely of course,
but just a little bit
to reduce the opening,
to feel more of that.
Slight effect.
Another thing you can do
is, you know,
if you have a metal straw,
it's just kind of like
whole,
like partially closed
the opening at the bottom,
with your finger.
So again, that the,
the opening basically becomes smaller
(17:45):
and you feel more of that back pressure.
I don't have to do that
because of the Arizona.
So anyways,
makes it just a little bit easier.
We're going to do this side over a fifth.
And then over an octave like this view.
So first I'm doing that
fifth slide like we did on humming.
(18:07):
And then I'm going
up to the entire octave as well.
Keep it nice and slidey between the notes
and not
but like this.
And again, we're still keeping it
super light and easy.
No pushing and no loud volume. Okay,
(18:28):
you
do.
You need
to do.
(18:54):
So.
One thing I just noticed
was my tongue
wanted to curl up a little bit
and retract
a little bit inside of my mouth.
I was like, oh, hold on,
let's not do that.
Keep that tone nice and relaxed.
Just the ball
at the bottom of your, of your mouth.
You.
(19:16):
You
see?
You okay?
I'm feeling myself
trying to push a little bit
for that volume.
I'm going to do that again
at a quieter volume.
Loom.
(19:43):
Me?
Me, me
me
again.
Me.
(20:09):
Okay, so up here,
I'm starting to feel like.
Okay, I'm pushing a little.
So whenever you're feeling that, as you
if you watched the video
or heard the episode on
how to practice with tracks,
you already know this.
But when you
whenever you start feeling like, oh,
hold on, I'm starting to push.
And when you're practicing with a track,
(20:30):
stay there until it's like,
okay, okay, this is feeling better.
And then keep going
rather than just blindly
following the track.
Oh, that was much better already.
Woo!
One more room okay.
(20:56):
We're going to go back down to
you here.
(21:17):
You
you,
Oops.
(21:39):
Room one I
yeah.
So down here we're obviously much lower
than where we started,
but I do like to explore
the high notes first
before I go down into my low notes,
just because I know
(21:59):
I have the tendency of having a voice
that is too heavy, too stiff.
Rather than lacking power.
So I always like to explore flexibility
and agility
and high notes first,
just to keep my voice light.
Talking about high notes.
Let's do that next.
So, we already went pretty high,
(22:22):
but now I want to get into
a territory.
Some people call it flagella.
Some people don't have a term for it.
It doesn't really matter.
Whatever it is you want to call
it is totally fine with me,
but we're just going to go up
into the stratosphere
a little bit,
and we're going to explore
this on the quietest, squeaky,
most tiniest
(22:43):
little sound that you can possibly make.
Because we don't want to push
for these high notes, but rather,
you know,
let the vocal folds stretch
long to get to the high notes. Okay.
So we're going to start singing
right here.
On a little o sound.
Okay. So
oh, the
(23:03):
opening in my lips is incredibly small.
It almost gives you
a little bit of that sweet effect
compared to. Whoo!
Whoo hoo hoo!
That would just be whoo!
But we're going a little smaller.
Oh, okay.
Keep it nice and small and quiet.
(23:24):
This is the most important part
about this exercise.
Keep it nice and quiet.
the exercise goes like this.
Oh, we're
jumping all over the board
a little bit on purpose
so that we're not,
you know, building up too much weight
and too much strength.
But we're keeping it light
because we're
literally bouncing all over the place
(23:45):
here a little bit.
So let's do that again.
Getting used to this scale.
001 time
whoop whoop whoop whoop whoop whoop.
Again.
Keep it nice and small and keep it light.
let's do the exercise together.
Ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
ooh ooh ooh
(24:08):
ooh ooh
ooh hoo hoo hoo hoo.
Really use those ages.
Hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo.
Rather than whoo hoo hoo hoo!
There's no age there.
All right,
so every time you start
the notes re attack with that h.
Whoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo!
To get the breath slow.
(24:29):
Going without getting louder.
Hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo
hoo hoo!
Whoop whoop!
Woo!
Hoo hoo hoo hoo!
Boo
hoo hoo!
(24:51):
Woo!
I'm going to do this one
one more time,
because I feel like
it could have felt 5% easier.
Woo woo woo.
One more time. Woo!
Ooh.
They go oh!
(25:11):
Ooh!
Hear how this does not sound pretty.
It sounds kind of squeaky.
That's the whole purpose
of this exercise. Again.
More time.
(25:32):
To.
Do.
That was flat.
Try again.
Woo!
Whoo hoo!
Whoo!
Okay, I hear how I'm consistently
going a little flat on this. Top notes.
(25:52):
Now we are on C sharp six.
We are very high up here.
And so I'm like,
okay, I'm not ready to give up on it yet.
I tried three times.
I'm not ready
yet, though, to give up on it.
So I'm going to start
making adjustments to
what I'm trying to do here.
So I'm going to use
just a little bit more of that.
Russell I'm going to lean into those H
is a little more
(26:12):
fancy.
Whoo!
Now that was all the way up on the note.
Now I'm going to try that one more time.
Reduce the volume by 5%.
This.
Is the first one.
(26:34):
I was better than this one.
One more time is.
Okay, I'm starting to feel
a little closed off in my throat.
Maybe my neck
muscles are engaging a little bit,
so I'm going to just shake my head loose.
Ooh, that felt better.
One more thing I want to do.
(26:54):
Just a tendency that I have is
my larynx tends to get stuck too
high a little.
So I'm going to inhale through a yawn
to start with a neutral larynx.
Of course, we're incredibly high, meaning
your larynx will be much higher
than where it normally would be.
That is totally normal. Okay.
But again, for me,
I just know that my larynx tends
to get just a little stuck
(27:15):
and my neck muscles start engaging.
And it's just again,
it gives me that stuck feeling.
So I know that about my cell
so that I can make changes.
So I'm like, okay.
Inhaling through a yawn before
I get started and shaking my head loose
and seeing if that helps.
Oh thank you.
Oh, that was great.
So inhaling through
(27:35):
the yarn really helpful.
Let's get.
Oh
oh.
Oh, one more time now I feel like
oh my gosh,
I have too much breath in my lungs.
So I want to make sure
I'm not over breathing.
Oh, so close.
(27:59):
Oh.
Oh.
Oh, no.
I already felt from the beginning
that that one was not going to be it.
One more time.
For.
Oh, okay.
So we're on E6 here.
Almost there. Not quite.
I'm like okay, this is high enough.
I already feel very different
(28:19):
now when I'm speaking,
my voice feels much less heavy
because I'm so used to the stretch.
Now all we got to do is now go back down.
Oh, we're going to go down
and have some small rubber for some.
000.
Oh, oh.
(28:40):
Oh.
Oh, use the breath, Laura.
Oh
oh, that's a lot better
with a little.
Oh.
Oh oh.
(29:01):
Oh oh.
Oh oh.
Oh oh.
Oh.
Woo woo
woo woo woo
(29:23):
woo woo woo woo woo.
Oh there you go okay. Nice.
So again with this
the goal is to go
as humanly high as possible
for you specifically right.
Whatever that is for you.
But did you see like I started
feeling like oh okay.
Hold on
I need to make some adjustments around
B-flat. This note right here.
(29:44):
But I went all the way up to E six.
Couldn't really get that one.
I got the E flat,
not really the E today,
which is totally fine.
That's where I'm at today,
which is great.
But, you know, like, don't start
giving up as soon as you're like,
okay, hold on.
This is starting to feel weird.
I'm going to go turn
back around like, no, stay here.
Try again and again
(30:05):
and again and make adjustments.
Breathe in through a yarn
to reset that larynx.
Shake your head loose.
Hold into your
like your fists, into your jaw.
Whatever it is
that you need to do to start to,
you know, making some adjustments
to get the notes out
a little bit more easily.
If after try 5 to 7, it's
still not quite there,
(30:25):
turn around and
and call it a day for that specific
exercise up there. Okay.
But again, keep trying.
Stay there.
Try again, again and again and again
before you give up.
All right.
Next up, we have an agility exercise.
So this
exercise that we did,
the hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo.
It's kind of agility already
(30:47):
because we're jumping all over the board
a little bit.
But I do want to
do another exercise again
because today is an extra bad voice day.
So I want to go
that extra
mile and do another agility exercise.
long, long, long long, long, long, long,
also kind of helps me with my
tongue as well, which is nice.
(31:08):
And same thing here.
I'm jumping all over the board
and I want to keep it pretty quick.
No no no no no no no.
Then I'm not really working on agility.
Nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah
nah nah nah nah nah nah.
So it's ng to like normal na na na.
The only thing that's moving in my face
(31:30):
is my tongue in the back.
It goes from
touching the roof of my mouth
to releasing, to touching,
to releasing, to touching, to releasing.
Right? So no no no no no no no no no.
That's the only movement I'm doing here.
I'm not moving my jaw at all.
so let's try together.
Na na na na na na na na na na na na
na na na na na na na na na na na na.
(31:54):
You're hitting that top note six times.
Na na na na na na
na na na na na na na na na.
It's easy.
La la la la
la la la la la la la la la la
la la la la la la la la la la la la.
Don't slow dans la la la
la la la la la la la la la la la
(32:16):
la la la la la la la la la la la
la la la la la.
So here I'm getting a little more mixy.
And now la la la la.
You know, like,
that's not the purpose of this exercise.
We want to keep it light and agile.
La la la la la la la la
la la la la la la la la la
la la la la la la la la la la la la la.
(32:38):
Feeling a little Fleming.
La la la la la la la la la la la la la la
la la la la la la
la la la la la la
la la la la la la la la la la la la la.
Oh, I was awful, but,
they sounded awful. But that's okay.
We're paying attention to what
(32:58):
singing feels like
rather than what it sounds like.
So I'm like, right in my break here.
Top note is C5.
Yeah, C5.
So it's like, oh my gosh, one more time.
La la la la nah nah nah
nah nah nah nah nah nah.
That's a little more head dominant.
But I'm going to stick to that for now.
La la la la
la la la la la la la la la la la.
(33:20):
Na na na na na na na na na na na na na.
La la la la la la la la la
la la la la la.
Ling a ling.
Ling a ling a
ling a ling ling a one more.
The ling a ling a ling a ling.
La la la la.
Okay,
so the trickiest part for me
(33:41):
is that transition, right?
Like where we're getting more
mixy, more head dominant.
So, you know, just keeping it light
there is
is key for me here
with this agility exercise.
But this is just kind of like
an extra thing. Not super necessary.
But I like to do some more agility
exercises like this
when I have a pretty typical day.
(34:03):
But let's move on.
Let's actually do okay.
So two different ways you can do this.
One, you can either do it
on a tongue bite,
meaning you just stick out your tongue
and you gently bite on it.
E like this
E make sure that your tongue is flat
and round,
not thick and pointy,
flat and round instead.
(34:23):
Or we can go back to that skewer.
If you have a skewer,
put that underneath.
Your tongue.
Curl your tongue under,
lock it in behind your bottom teeth
and do it.
That way.
I'm going to do both
so that you can see and hear both.
I'm going to start with a tongue
bite, though.
on the scale here.
So just stick
(34:43):
out your tongue,
gently bite on it, or use that skewer.
What I'm going to do.
Because again,
I know my larynx tends to go
a little wild sometimes.
I'm going to actively try and lower
my larynx
while I am pushing out my tongue,
especially in the lower notes down here.
So it sounds like this new
(35:07):
you can see a little bit
more of that dopey
sound compared to you.
So again, I'm
going to focus on pushing my larynx down.
You can do whatever feels right to me.
Louie, Louie,
Louie Louie
(35:32):
Louie me.
So again, keep going here.
I'm just for the sake of demonstrating.
Going to use my skewer
now instead of pushing,
biting on my tongue.
Who who,
(35:53):
Who did
you hear
all the,
Lou?
Lou.
You.
(36:14):
Lou.
Through the Lou I was terrible.
Let's try that again.
Lou.
Lou, I'm feeling my larynx.
(36:37):
Really?
Just kind of like,
squeezing down
because of my neck muscles.
So I'm going to switch
to my tongue, bite me
one more time.
Boom. There you go.
That was a lot better.
So we're on a here.
And when we did the
exercise, we went all the way up to E,
which is a lot higher than this.
(36:58):
Yet even like
even though this is a lot lower here,
I'm feeling
my muscles wanting to just,
start to engage, so.
Oh, Lou, there you go.
That was a lot better
just, you know,
shaking everything loose for me,
just using my,
like, just looking side
to side, shaking my head
(37:20):
really helps for me.
You play around with it,
whatever feels best for you.
But, yeah,
this tongue bite
or with the skewer in
or even with,
you know,
paper towel stretching
and holding your tongue
as you're doing this.
If you're doing the skewer
and the skewer keeps dropping,
that's a pretty good indicator
that,
there is some tongue tension going on.
So really focus on
(37:40):
pushing that tongue forward
so that your it's not trying to retract,
which is what makes that skewer drop.
Okay.
So that just means you need to work on
releasing tongue
tension a little bit more,
which is exactly what
this exercise is for.
So just keep at it, okay? You got it.
All righty.
So far,
all the exercises that we have done
are pretty closed off.
(38:01):
And now it's time to
start opening up a little bit more.
So we're going to do,
we're going to start here
minimum.
Oh we're just going through
all the vowels minimum.
Oh, keep your jaw relaxed
and your face boring.
(38:24):
Maybe more more
more minimum.
Almost minimum.
Oh, minimum.
Oh, minimum.
(38:46):
You leave them.
Almost leave him.
Oh, there you go.
I started
finding that next one more time.
Me minimum.
Oh, he minimum.
(39:09):
Oh, it feels stuck.
One more time.
Minimum of.
Oh, it's a little better.
Minimum.
Oh.
Oh, this is just, again,
right over that break.
The hardest part in your range?
(39:29):
For most people, at least for me.
Me, my mom.
You know, leave him.
You remem,
of all women,
(39:50):
who leave him.
Who maybe the mom
who had,
you know, one more.
He did.
(40:10):
Maybe you or someone
were, like, super high.
It's difficult
to really get those vowel out vowels out.
Just like minimum almo.
It turns a little bit more into my
my mom or,
I just totally fine, you know,
we make adjustments
as we move through the range.
But I like doing this
(40:31):
kind of exercise to just start opening up
and see how's
my voice feeling
now that it's a little bit more,
a little bit more open?
Yeah. Today it just.
It feels really dry.
It just feels really dry.
And that's okay.
That's where we're at today.
That's why
we're doing this video today to know.
Okay, what can we do to help with this
as much as possible.
I want to start
(40:51):
exploring my balance a little bit
and see where we're at with that.
So I don't want to start
like sustaining notes
or anything like that just yet.
I want to do, like a short, explosive
kind of,
staccato exercises to see, okay,
what's happening.
So, I today, let's do the pop exercise.
(41:12):
So pop pop pop.
So it's literally pop.
Like you're popping a balloon, right?
Pop pop pop.
Now, if your pitch starts
going all over the place
when you're doing this, don't worry.
That's very normal.
If you're not used to doing
staccato exercises,
staccato meaning short and and explosive.
So we don't want to go pop, pop, pop
or anything like that.
(41:32):
It's pop pup pup. It's nice and short.
Pup pup pup
pup pup pup
pup pup pup pup pup pup.
So here,
instead of
moving into like a softer mix,
I'm trying to stay,
a little bit more just dominant up here,
(41:53):
obviously without screaming.
Pup pup pup pup pup pup
pop pop pop pop pop pop
pop pop pop pop
pop pop pop pop bump bump
bump bump bump bump.
(42:15):
One more time.
That was a burp at the same time.
Excuse me and pop.
Pop.
Bup bup bup bup
bup bup bup.
I'm feeling my vocal folds.
Getting a little grabby.
And you can hear
almost like a little
fry coming through there.
So I'm going to do a quick little,
(42:36):
on a breathy voice.
Pop pop
pop pop pop pop pop pop,
hood pop pop pop.
No.
Not today that is not coming out today.
Which is fine.
(42:57):
Just where we're at today.
Keep going about pop pop
pop pop pop pop pop pop
pop pop pop pop pop pop
pop pop pop pop
pop pop pop pop pop pop.
One more. Pop pop pop.
(43:20):
So we went all the way up to E!
The E wasn't really quite there for me,
just fine. It's really high.
But I, what I can do here.
If I wanted to is, you know, like,
do some other exercises,
come back to this, and see.
Okay. Where are we at now?
Does it help at all?
But just for the sake of,
you know, making sure that this video
is not going to be an hour long,
(43:41):
it's might already be an hour long, but,
to keep it short,
I'm not going to do another,
belting exercise, but,
you know, stay here and see.
Okay. What's what's happening.
But don't do it for too long, okay?
We don't want to overdo it,
especially on days
where your voice isn't
feeling that great.
But now what we want to do
is like a little sustained exercise
which, oh, sweet baby
Jesus, this is where it gets hard.
(44:04):
So, I like to do something
like a fire,
a super bright,
a super open kind of sound.
Like for, like, apple,
but with a fat in front of it for for,
actually, we're gonna go
for, for five.
Oh. This is going to be hard.
(44:26):
Oh, we're not making it easy today.
Still feel the phlegm on my vocal folds
like trying to shake loose. There.
let's give it a try.
Seventh.
Fifth.
Five.
Fifth.
Fifth.
(44:49):
Fifth.
Five f.
Did you hear that?
My tone started changing halfway through
because it started
getting a little grippy.
One more time for,
for for, it starts out great.
(45:10):
And then as I'm holding it,
it starts gripping.
The, that was better for,
for the,
for s,
I don't know
if you're watching the video,
you can see me.
Kind of like pushing my elbows out.
(45:31):
I'm doing that to have,
like, a mental image
of opening up my throat,
because I know my tendency
is to just go
squeeze inside of my throat
and getting those vocal folds together
too tightly.
So if I'm pushing out my elbows,
it can help me feel like
a little more open.
I know it makes technically noise.
I'm sorry.
We where where we see some effort.
(45:55):
Oh, that was a little grippy.
I'm going to try and make it
a little more breathy
so that I'm using more breath flow for,
for for us.
Better for us.
No, that already started.
Not well or type of,
synthy,
(46:17):
hello vocal cracks.
Wasn't that beautiful?
One more time for,
50.
I'm going to keep going
and see what happens further
there.
That was better
until the very ending there.
But one more time The
(46:38):
is there
and yeah, I could make this mix here,
but I'm trying to explore more
t sound here on purpose.
Just, you know,
explore the power in my voice.
Where are we at? There.
And. Yeah, it's tricky.
It is tricky.
This exercise is difficult for me
either way.
When I'm feeling good or when I'm
not feeling good, like, vocally.
(47:00):
But, have a good day. Or not a good day.
But that's kind of the
the last thing that, that I do
when I do a vocal warmup is seeing
where are my sustains at.
And again, for me,
I just know my tendencies.
My vocal folds like to start gripping
as I'm sustaining notes.
So I'm thinking breathy voice.
I'm thinking create space in my throat,
and, you know, pushing
(47:21):
those elbows out in order to do that.
Shaking my head.
No, to,
you know,
make sure that those neck muscles
are not engaging
and maybe even working a little bit
on lowering my larynx to
to help with that.
Before we finish off
with a pop song exercise,
which is the last step,
I do want to go back to that,
usually
(47:41):
because, you know,
we were just doing a lot of belting,
which is a little bit heavier.
I want to go back to that.
Oh, sounds to see.
Excuse me, hiccups to see,
where are we at there.
And get the voice a little lighter again.
More.
(48:08):
Oh.
Excuse me.
Oh.
(48:35):
Oh.
Oh!
Whoo!
Okay, I'm going to pause it there.
I don't want to, like,
go crazy again with it
like we did the first time around.
But just again,
to get that stretch back
into my vocal folds and release
a little bit of that heaviness
(48:56):
in my voice.
And a last step.
Now let's do a pop
song exercise together.
Let's do Watermelon Sugar.
This is one of my favorite,
warm up style pop song exercises.
So without further ado,
let's just dig right in.
You're ready.
Let's go green.
You eat it all.
(49:21):
You watermelon sugar.
Up up up up up up up high
I just wanna taste it.
Tasting.
You eat it
all you want and then sugar up.
(49:44):
Hop hop hop hop hop hop hop
I just wanna taste it.
Tasted you?
Yeah.
You wanna try the song.
(50:04):
Dance on fire.
Really feel that bounce.
Turn you away I just wanna taste it.
Tasting you
shake your lips.
Ooh, keep your mouth moving here.
You should woo too much sugar.
Up up up up up up up up
(50:29):
I just wanna taste it.
Tasting you.
Hey.
Oh, what a man, sugar.
Up up up up up
up up high I just wanna taste it.
(50:52):
Tasting.
Ooh, you wanna move
sugar up high five.
Up up up high.
I just wanna taste it.
(51:12):
Tasting you to be.
Oh you wanna sugar
up, up high up up up
higher I just wanna taste it.
(51:32):
Tasting you.
You feel
warm and sugar.
Up up up higher up up up
higher I just wanna taste it.
(51:52):
Tasting
you be.
Yeah. Oh,
well I'm getting used to it.
But here again my pump up high
I just wanna taste it.
(52:13):
Tasted Okay.
That is it
for our very extensive warm up.
And I definitely feel much better
now than I did
when we started this warm up.
My voice feels a little lighter.
It feels definitely, like a lot
less heavy, more flexible,
and less phlegm.
There was quite a bit of phlegm for me
(52:34):
that came up as I was doing this warmup,
but I definitely feel
a little dehydrated today
in my vocal folds,
which is what makes them
just a little a little more stiff today
than I would like. But that's okay.
I'm just, you know, going through the day
with that in mind
and not overusing my voice
as much as possible.
Of course,
if you have to play a gig,
(52:54):
you got to do what you gotta do.
But just be gentle with yourself.
So I hope this was helpful.
I'm sorry
if you're having a bad voice day.
We all get those, okay?
Even the pros do even be on side
as we all get those days.
It's just important that we figure out
what can we do in order
to get our voices as
(53:15):
normal as possible.
Right?
Like us as normal,
meaning as close
to our regular voice state as possible.
So you know, the better
you know your voice, the,
you know, faster
you can get back to that.
Because you know what works for you.
And you know what?
It doesn't really make
a lot of sense for you. Okay?
But that is it for today's episode.
(53:38):
Thank you for watching and listening,
and I'll see you in the next one.
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