Those who use their voice to make their living, such as singers, actors and speakers, often employ vocal coaches to help them train and keep their voices in top condition. Even if you are not a professional speaker or singer, you can still improve the sound of your voice by performing vocal exercises at home. Such exercises are useful for both warming up the vocal cords and for training yourself to support your voice with your breath.
Vocal Resonance Exercise
The Keep Left Theatre website recommends alternately humming and speaking to increase your vocal resonance, which gives your voice carrying power. The exercise is performed by humming the sound "mmmmm" until you feel your lips and nose buzz, then blending the humming sound into speaking the word "one." This same action, humming and speaking "mmm-one," "mmm-two," "mmm-three" is repeated up to the number 10.
Lip Rolls
Many performers use this lip roll exercise, states the We Sing website. Performing the exercise standing, and with your back straight, helps keep your throat open. You begin by pressing your index fingers below the cheekbones and just next to the corners of your mouth. By inhaling deeply, then exhaling slowing through the mouth, you create an air pocket which makes it easy to roll your lips. As you sing your desired warm-up scales by pushing air through your lips, making a bubbling sound, you are relaxing the vocal cords and the muscles of the throat, mouth and lips.
Vocal Warmups
The Keep Left Theatre suggests starting each morning by slowly and clearly repeating sentences which employ all the consonants and vowels of the English language. Some sample sentences you might use include "Eat each green pea. Aim straight at the game. Ed said get ready," and "Thoughtful thinkers think things through."
Breathing Exercise
Good speech and singing require proper breath technique. Both your singing and your speaking voice can be improved by deep breathing, employing not just your lungs but you entire diaphragm. You can test your ability to breath deeply by lying on your back with a hand placed on either side of your waist, pointed toward your belly button. As you slowly breath in, you should concentrate on expanding your diaphragm without lifting your shoulders. If you perform the exercise correctly, you will feel your stomach rise as it pushes your hands slightly outward. Once you have breathed in as much as possible, you should slowly release your breath to a count of five, then repeat the exercise 10 times.
Member Comments