Ten Tips for warm-ups with no voice!

If your throat is sore and you really feel you cannot sing, try the following to keep your body and voice balanced.

1. Yawn: this is good for stretching the back of the throat, it stimulates breathing, stretches the ears and possibly encourages positive energies. As a singer you need to be aware of all the space in your pharynx.
2. Puffy Cheeks: this helps to balance the air pressure above and below the vocal folds. When you release connect with the breath in the lower abdominals.
3. Sniff (hum) breathe. You don’t have to do the high hums but it helps connect breath and resonance.
4. Panting: encourages freedom in the breathing muscles and helps energy flow.
5. Seated bending forward with head and arms dropped, breathe to feel the lungs expand into the low back.
6. Self- massage shoulder rolls, clockwise and anti-clockwise.
7. Pin-point on the shoulders for tiny rotations with big impact across the back.
8. Bunged ooo: pull the lips forward in kissing position for an ‘ooo’, this helps to release jaw tension and then block the ooo with the tongue, you can sing through this as well for more resonance sensations
9. Massage the lower jaw from ear to centre and then massage upper cheek bones. You should feel blocked mucus moving down the back of the nose and throat.
10. Candlestick wick: stretching whole body against the forces of gravity gently but extending vertebrae and back of neck keeping body balanced and poised.