Three simple vocal warm-ups that you can do in your car.

If you are a singer on your way to a voice lesson, rehearsal or a gig, it is always good to do a bit of warming up in the car. Because 15 minutes of warming up can do wonders for your voice.

Breathing:

• Waking up your respiratory instrument is the most important part of a warm up sequence.

• Round your lips as if you are going to whistle and begin inhaling.

• Inhale 10 seconds, hold your breath for 10 seconds (optional), and exhale for 10 seconds. Repeat the whole process 10 times.

• Make sure your breath feels low and you don’t have any air compression in your upper chest or throat.

• Keep your abdominal muscles relaxed.

Lip trills:

• Make a motorboat sound with your lips, with and without phonating.

• Glide the pitch up and down.

• Let the sound fade a little bit if you feel you are losing the trill on the lips. The more you fade the sound the more air escapes through your lips to stabilize the trill.

• You can switch between falsetto and chest voice.

Sirens:

• Gentle glides on “oo” or your vowel of choice, starting in the head voice and gently sliding down to the lower range.

• Do some descending glides first, then follow with some sirens.

• Feel the resonance in the “mask” or the third-eye area, and get present to it as you sing.

• Keep the facial muscles and jaw relaxed. It doesn’t need to be crazy loud, just smooth and easy.

I use these exercises in my lessons frequently and I would be happy to walk you through them if you have any questions.