Your voice is your most important instrument as a singer-songwriter, and like any instrument, it performs better when properly warmed up. Taking ten to fifteen minutes to warm up before singing — whether for writing, recording, or performing — protects your voice and improves your vocal quality. Here are essential warm-up exercises every songwriter should know.
Start by humming gently on a comfortable pitch, letting the vibration resonate in your face and chest. Slowly slide up and down your range, keeping the volume low and the sound relaxed. Humming warms up your vocal cords without putting strain on them, making it the ideal starting exercise.
Press your lips together loosely and blow air through them to create a motorboat-like buzzing sound. Slide up and down your range while maintaining the trill. Lip trills engage your breath support and warm up your voice evenly across your range. If lip trills are difficult, try tongue trills (rolling Rs) instead.
Starting from your lowest comfortable note, slide smoothly up to your highest comfortable note and back down again, like a siren. Do this on a hum, then on an open vowel sound like "oo" or "ah." Sirens stretch your vocal range and help smooth out the transitions between different parts of your voice.
Sing simple five-note scales (do-re-mi-fa-sol-fa-mi-re-do) on different vowel sounds, moving up by half steps each time. Start in the comfortable middle of your range and gradually extend higher and lower. Scale exercises develop pitch accuracy and warm up your voice systematically across its full range.
Good singing starts with good breath support. Practice breathing deeply into your diaphragm — your stomach should expand, not your chest. Try the "hissing" exercise: take a deep breath and release it in a steady, controlled hiss for as long as possible. This builds breath control and support that translates directly to better singing.
Physical tension in your neck, shoulders, and jaw affects your singing. Roll your shoulders, stretch your neck from side to side, open your jaw wide and release it, and massage your facial muscles. Releasing physical tension before singing allows your voice to be freer and more relaxed.
A consistent vocal warm-up routine protects your voice and ensures you're singing at your best during writing sessions, recordings, and performances. These exercises are quick, simple, and make a noticeable difference in how your voice feels and sounds.
For help writing lyrics that showcase your warmed-up voice, Fast Rhymes provides songwriting tools that support every aspect of your creative process.
20/11/2025
Everything you need to write songs & poetry.
