Marcus Wells

Vocal Tech
Heather Petruzelli
3/3/2017
Vocal Warm-up

Warm-up Layout

- First we start class with our topic of the day.

- Then we go to physical stretches which include side stretches, jaw massages,

and stretching the different sides of the neck.

- Then we go to our vocal warm-ups which start in legit, move to mix and chatty

sounds, and then belt sounds.

- We’ve also added cork exercises which is when we place a cork in between our

teeth on one side of our jaw and try to enunciate lines from our songs using

primarily our tongues instead of utilizing our jaws too much.

Specific Vocal Exercises

1. Lip Trills - Wake up the voice and loosen us up. Doesn’t really help with one

voice style, but really helps bring the sound forward and help keep it crisp

whether we are singing legit, mix, or belt.

2. Loose jaw with tongue pressed to our bottom teeth, jutting the body of it out on

descending pitches - Helps us not over use our jaw and articulate mainly with the

tongue. While I don’t think this one necessarily helps with a certain type of

singing either, if I had to pick one I would say it helps with legit because we have

to let our jaw and our mouths be tall which is how I would think to place my jaw

for legit.

3. Octave jump up and then descending on “Ah - Oo(x3) - Ah” - This is a legit

exercise that helps us stay in a legit style when we get into higher notes because

we start in a very chesty area and then jump the octave, but we have to keep the
 air spinning and the same tall space that we had on the low part of the exercise

as we move up the scale.

4. Zingamama’s - Because of how fast this exercise moves it forces us to be a little

bit chattier when we are singing this. This exercise which has the “Z” which lives

on our lips and also the “M” which also is dominant on our lips helps us bring the

sound forward into the mixy and chatty area that we need it to be in order to mix

properly.

5. Not Now - Not now helps for me with both belt and mix although it is primarily a

belt exercise. We start by calling out “Not Now” before we sing it and we have to

keep that feeling of calling it out and getting the sound out of our mouths when

we are belting.

6. Ham - Ham is a mix dominant exercise that makes us be really chatty and

forward and get the sound out. I think it primarily helps with more of a chest

heavy mix as opposed to a head heavy mix like I think zingamama helps with.

Primarily used for boys.

7. Taxi - Taxi is another mix/belt exercise. The goal of this is to help call the sound

out and get out of the back of your throat, but also helps avoid getting too heavy

on the higher parts. Primarily for girls.

How I utilize these in Private Voice

In my voice lessons, the exercises most used are lip trills, not only during warm-ups, but

also before I start my song sometimes. Dan has me do this because the lip trill helps me

find a really comfortable place to place the higher parts of my songs that add a little bit

of mix so that it’s not so taxing on my vocally when I’m singing super high. It also helps
me not start super heavy so that I can easily, and comfortably build to big parts of my

songs. I do a similar exercise to the octave jump warm-up in Dan’s class that I think he

uses mainly to help engrain into my head how to stay light when I’m jumping from parts

of my range that can only be sung in chest to areas in my passaggio where I can maybe

start bringing in more mixy technique. Even though Dan uses a similar exercise for a

different reason I think it helps me in both ways. Calling out words is also something we

do in my lessons a lot because it really helps with getting the sound out and not being

trapped in the back of my throat when it comes to higher notes and when I call them out

it helps make everything lighter too because I have a tendency to add weight to

everything.