How do I warm my voice up?
One of the positives of the Covid-19 pandemic and increased push to work from home were the amount of new voice talents who decided to properly give voice overs a go, rather than just a dream.
However many haven’t had professional training. Not a bad thing especially when a producer wants a very natural sound. But if you are new you might be missing a few important parts to the tool box which can really help your sound and your confidence. A good warm up supports your voice through a long session and grounds it to help add character, depth and resonance. Try following the steps below to warm up for your next voice over!
There are many options which are easily accessible and can be done alone, or with friends if you happen to be working together! We are in a socially distanced job, so need to learn to do all these things by ourselves. An easy one to do on your way to studio, driving home to record or while wandering around your home is over annunciating all the words you can see or read around you. Road signs, shop names, book titles, whatever you can see. Overdo the consonants, repeat them, leave them out and lengthen the vowels to warm up vocal chords, tongue and lips. Originally, I started doing this in the theatre on stage, looking out at a beautiful (usually!) auditorium during warm up before the show began. A fun and varied exercise while on tour in one theatre for only a few days or weeks. Possibly not quite so interesting in a long running show in London’s West End but you certainly get to know all the auditorium signs and features over a year! Similarly getting into your home studio will have all the same things around you to over exaggerate every day. To mix it up! Keep yourself interested by picking a page from a favourite book, recite a poem and find some brilliant tongue twisters!
“A proper cup of coffee in a proper copper coffee pot”
Sirening:
Another fabulously helpful warm up is Sirening. Great for singing and speaking work. Also incredibly helpful for doing a general check up of the voice. Do you sound like a 60 a day smoker or a 16 year old soprano? Are there any patches which are bit sticky or gravely? Gently sirening over them will help relax and warm these areas up.
– Say the word sing and when you get to the “ing” sound start sliding up and down your vocal scale.
– If gravely areas are there gently focus on them by sirening or humming in a circling motion.
– Imagine you are singing in a circle around these sticky areas – until the voice soothes and opens.
How do you warm up before singing or voice overs? Do you have a favourite tongue twister you would like to share? Pop it in the comments below!
Now get sirening and back into your booth!
Hannah 
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