Simone Niles shares her tips on warming up your voice.

Simone Niles

Vocalist | Transformational Coach

We asked Singdaptive instructor and transformational vocal coach, Simone Niles, what tips or advice she has on getting your voice warmed up for singing practice or performance.

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Simone’s Go-To Warm-Up Exercises

Tips from The Team Transcript: My go-to warmup exercises are two very simple exercises: humming and sirens. Now, the reason I love humming is because it’s a great way to wake up the voice and create resonance in the mask, your cheek bones, and your mouth; and it’s a great way of just gently bringing your voice in, letting it know you’re about to use it. Secondly, I love vocal sirens because they are a quick and relaxed way to move through your vocal range efficiently, allowing you to use most of your voice and get the larynx going up and down. It’s a wonderful way to warm up quickly and efficiently.

So humming and sirens. You could do those for 10 minutes and you’d be surprised how quickly and efficiently you feel warmed up for practice. If you’re doing something more heavy, than still starting with these two exercises could be great. Then you could add a few more exercises that are specifically helpful for your repertoire.

What`s Your Go-To Warm-up Exercise?

Simone’s Favorite Warm-Up Song

Tips from The Team Transcript: What is my favorite warmup song? I wouldn’t say that I have a warm-up song per se. I have my five or so go-to exercises for a warmup, which would include vocal sighs, humming, sirens, tongue trills, and lip bubbles. And I kind of circulate around that.

If I’m preparing for a particular song or repertoire, I might choose to sing gently over one of those songs until I’m fully warmed up. If I’m not preparing for something and I’m just warming up my voice and working on technique, then I might go to the R&B genre, soul, or a bit of jazz because that’s what I tend to sing if I’m doing covers.

But because I’m really all about play and curiosity, when I’m using my voice, I tend to really make stuff up. I love improvising around things. Sometimes I will just bringing a phrase or chorus of a song that I like and know well into the warmup, just to play around and get curious about it. So not a favorite warmup song per se, but playing, being curious and just using the time strategically, if you have particular repertoire that you need to cover.

What is Your Favorite Vocal Warm-up Song?