WARM UP – WHY?

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For many of us, coming to choir is an opportunity to just sing, to take a break from the everyday stresses of life and to have fun. Open Door Choir’s philosophy is very much based around spreading the joy of music-making, music brings us together as we breathe in and out in unison it unites us into one big and beautiful group of people. So why can’t we just sing from the get-go? Why do we do all those warm ups before we get to the “fun part”? Well a good warm up is a time well spent. We are aiming to loosen our bodies – to stretch, breathe into, align and to relax; we use it to raise our energy levels after perhaps a tiring day, we think about our posture and our breathing, and we begin to prepare our voices. I also like to use the warm -up to connect us to this moment in time, to ‘leave the day behind’ and to get ready to listen and learn as we move onto our current repertoire. I introduced the use of kazoos at our last session as a fun and gentle method of warming up our voices, singing through a straw also works (and is a lot quieter). If you’re interested in finding out more about this sort of SOVT there’s lots of info on t’internet, but here’s a quick explanation…

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“SOVT is an acronym that stands for Semi-Occluded Vocal Tract. It's a fancy way of saying that your mouth is partially closed as you vocalise—the word “occluded” literally means to close up or block off! By reducing the collision force of the vocal folds, this technique allows the vocal folds to heal and recover from trauma. It also helps to ease tension in the laryngeal muscles (the ones that control and surround your voice), promoting a voice that is more relaxed and efficient.”

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There’s a great YouTube video demonstrating some warm up exercises without the use of a kazoo here…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uduf_Bb7e-0&t=144s

 

You can practice some of the songs you are learning using your kazoo, remembering to fire up those abdominals to support you as you reach for your higher notes.

 

So here are the recordings from our packed session, we had kazoos, fluffy pom-poms and a bit of the Killers at the end – what more can I say? Bring on next week, and let’s strengthen and care for those vocal chords to take us to the next level B ☺