Vocal Exercises

Part of our rehearsal process involves warming up both our voice and body before each rehearsal to ensure we don’t cause any damage. During rehearsals on Tuesday 26^th November we spent time doing exercises to warm up our voice and to practise controlling the voice. These exercises can then be used at home, during existing rehearsals and as warm ups before the performances.

It is important when singing that we don’t strain our voices and so we have to be careful in the way in which we increase volume. An exercise we used to help increase involved using our mouths rather than our vocal cords to increase volume. We began by taking a breath to fill our chests and then singing a note. To increase the volume you open your mouth wider and this will increase the volume. Using this technique will prevent us from stressing our larynx during rehearsals and shows and I found that this encourages me to smile when singing, which achieves the characterisation of the villagers of Merrivale.

A follow on exercise we used was to sing a song while using this technique to increase volume. We sang “Row, row, row your boat”, and we began by singing this “normally”. We then sung again but were directed to sing louder by opening our mouths wider to create more sound. The technique is straight forward and makes a noticeable difference to the volume of singing, showing me how simple it will be for us when we are having to sing with a live band. We will not have to strain our voices to be heard over the band.

An exercise that helps in loosening up the larynx muscles before singing is to look up at the ceiling and then gulping. This exercise will help take any strain off the larynx once you begin to sing and will help prevent us from causing any vocal damage in the lead up to the performances.

These vocal exercises are essential in ensuring that our voices stay in good condition in the lead up to our performances, as well as during our run of “Cinderella”. We will be singing for large amounts of time and so it is important that we keep our voices safe.