It's "Warm-Up" in Here!

Lately I’ve been filing through my memory for warm up exercises I used to do in choir growing up and even in college and sorting/modifying them to make them appropriate for children ages K-5.  It’s important to make these exercises fun and engaging for students so that they associate singing with positive connotations, rather than as something that’s scary and embarrassing.  This is especially crucial for the upper grades (4^th and 5^th) as they’re at a really vulnerable age in terms of building self-esteem.  Music should be a place to build their self-esteem and confidence, not something that is humiliating and damaging to their personal growth.

I’ve pinpointed several warm-up exercises that I think are extremely accessible for elementary students and will help them relax and have fun singing with one another. Here they are:

1.     Breathing Exercises: These are great for getting students to use their diaphragms and warm up their vocal chords. Students breath in through their nose, hold for 4 counts, and then let out through their mouths saying SSS (like a snake) have them do this both as loudly and as quietly as possible to practice dynamics and control. Tell them to imagine they are a huge anaconda and then the smallest rattlesnake. Playing into their imagination helps them let go and have fun with the exercise. Another great breathing exercise is panting like a dog. Have student relax their tongue so it hangs out of their mouth like a dog, and pant. While panting, have them place their hands on their diaphragm to feel it working. This exercise warms up their vocal cords, opens their nasal passages and opens their throats.

2.     The Siren: In this exercise students their voice inflection and range to sound like a siren going up as high as they can and as low as they can for as long as they can. Just make sure they are not screaming or screeching - this will hurt their voices. Always model the exercise to make sure they are using their voices correctly.

3.     Humming: This is great because it’s easy for students to do and it helps place the soft palate in a high position, which is optimum for healthy singing. The buzzing sensation high in the sinuses is another indicator that the passage of sound is not coming from the throat. This is an easy way to help students feel the natural sensation of singing correctly and safely.

4.     Yum, Yum, Yum, Yum, Yum!: This is a fun exercise that helps loosen the jaw and softly warms the voice by emphasizing the vowel.  Have students sing it in the progression of Do, Mi, So, Mi, Do. This is also appropriate singing on “buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz” or using lip trills, “br,br,br,br,br,” which is basically like blowing bubbles out of water.  

5.     Tongue Twisters: Using tongue twisters and alliteration in chorus is great for diction practice. Some that I like to do are “The lips the teeth the tip of the tongue,” “Shelly sells sea shells down by the sea shore,” and “Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear, Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair, Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't very fuzzy, was he?”

6.     I love to sing!: Students sing those exact words in the following Solfege progression: Do, Mi So, Do, So, Mi, Do or in Solfege numbers it’s: 1,3,5,7,5,3,1. It’s fun to move your hand in a circular motion, make the circle bigger the higher you sing. This helps students visualize their pitch going up and helps keep them from going flat. You can also have student sing the actual Solfege words and sign the Kodály hand motions