Maximus Gage
Training your vocal muscles is an important aspect of singing, and it involves a range of exercises and techniques to improve your voice. Just as athletes train their muscles, singers can train their vocal muscles to enhance their singing abilities. This includes warming up the voice, improving breath support, maintaining hydration, and practising good posture. Additionally, specific exercises like vocal fry, glottal stops, and tongue trills can strengthen the muscles used for singing. The cricothyroid muscle (CT muscle) is essential for producing high-pitched sounds, and can be trained to expand your vocal range. Daily practice, awareness of your throat and mouth muscles, and proper breathing techniques are also key components of vocal training.
How to Train Vocal Muscles
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Warm-up | Smaller and larger glissandi upwards in the head voice to stretch the vocal cords |
| Vocal cool-down | Promotes regeneration of the voice and enables singers to sing more effortlessly the next day |
| Vocal exercises | Lip bubbling, tongue trills, humming, scales, glottal stops, and vocal fry |
| Hydration | Drink a minimum of 8 glasses of water per day |
| Abstain from | Smoking and acidic foods |
| Practice | Daily, consistent practice will help vocal cords stay strong and in good condition |
| Posture | Keep your back and shoulders straight |
| Enunciation | Helps your throat and jaw muscles improve |
| Awareness | Being aware of your muscles and what your throat and mouth are doing to achieve certain notes or pitches |
| Record | Record yourself singing a familiar song to compare with the original artist |
| CT muscle | Tilts the larynx, stretches the vocal cords, and helps expand the vocal range |
| TA muscle | Needs to be relaxed to produce high notes |
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What You'll Learn
Warm-up exercises
Warming up your vocal cords is essential to keep them healthy, sound your best, and protect against damage. Warm-up exercises allow you to sing better and extend your range comfortably. Here are some warm-up exercises to get you started:
Humming
Humming is an excellent vocal warm-up exercise as it doesn't strain your vocal cords. You can simply hum up and down the major scale with your mouth closed, or try the "straw phonation" technique. For this, you hum through a straw, starting at the bottom of your range and slowly sliding up to the top. You can even hum your favourite song through the straw!
Lip Buzzing or Lip Trills
Lip buzzing or lip trills are a great way to engage your lips, facial muscles, and diaphragm. Gently press your lips together and exhale to create a buzzing sound. This helps to strengthen the muscles involved in vocal production and improves breath control and support.
Tongue Trilling
Tongue trilling is an excellent exercise to loosen and relax the muscles of the tongue, improving articulation and diction. It also helps to increase vocal agility and flexibility while releasing tension in the jaw and throat. To do this, flutter your tongue rapidly against the roof of your mouth while producing sound.
Yawning
Yawning is a simple yet effective way to relax the muscles in the face and prepare for singing. It helps to open up the throat and expand the airway, improving airflow and vocal projection.
Nasal Consonant Exercises
Nasal consonant exercises help to practice control and pitch, creating a smooth and connected voice.
Sirens
Adding sirens or glissando to your warm-ups can help achieve complete vocal command, control, and connectedness.
In addition to these exercises, remember the importance of proper breathing techniques and good posture. Breathing from your diaphragm, rather than your chest, will give your voice more power and control. Maintaining good posture keeps your back and shoulders straight, allowing your diaphragm to open fully and your voice to sound louder and clearer. Last but not least, stay hydrated! Drink plenty of water to keep your vocal cords lubricated and healthy.
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Vocal cool-down
Just like athletes, singers need to warm up and cool down their vocal muscles to help calm the muscles, ease tension, and allow the body to return to normal. This helps to minimize the chance of injury and strain on the vocal folds.
- Lip trills or lip rolls: Gently hum notes while rolling your lips. This releases tension around the jaw and helps regulate blood flow in the larynx.
- Siren exercise: Start at the highest note you can comfortably sing and slide down your range to the octave below, making an "ahh" or "ee" sound as you move from one note to the next. This helps to loosen any tension in the voice and gradually relaxes your vocal muscles.
- Head rolls: Drop your head and slowly roll it from left to right and back again to relax the body and release any pent-up energy and tension in the head and neck muscles.
- Yawning: Keep your mouth closed and pretend to yawn to engage and loosen the jaw. This will help your jaw drop before a performance, allowing access to a wider range of sounds.
- Basic vocal exercises: Any basic vocal exercises that can be used for warm-up can also be used for cool-down, such as humming scales or breath pulses.
Remember to stay hydrated by drinking plenty of water, especially warm water with honey, lemon, or apple cider vinegar if your voice is tired or hoarse. Avoid acidic foods and smoking, as these can irritate your vocal cords and affect your voice quality.
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Hydration
There are two types of hydration to consider when it comes to your vocal cords: systemic and topical. Systemic hydration refers to the internal hydration of your entire body and vocal fold tissue. It hydrates the cells and tissues that make up your vocal cords from the inside out. To achieve this, aim to drink a minimum of 64 fl. oz. of water each day. Spread this out throughout the day, rather than drinking large amounts at once. This will ensure consistent hydration. It can take up to four hours for the water you drink to reach your vocal folds, so don't wait until you're thirsty to drink water. If you're consuming dehydrating drinks such as coffee or alcohol, make sure to compensate with extra water.
Topical hydration, on the other hand, refers to the hydration of the surface of your vocal cords. To increase topical hydration, you can humidify inhaled air with nebulizers, humidifiers, and steam inhalation. Maintaining a humid environment is also beneficial, especially if you live in a dry climate.
By staying hydrated, you'll be able to maintain your voice for longer. Research has shown that dehydrated singers experience vocal fatigue, leading to a loss of control of the muscles in the larynx. Dehydration also causes tissue stiffness, influencing vocal cord vibration and the quality of your voice. Therefore, keeping your vocal cords hydrated will lead to a wider pitch range and more vocal stability.
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Posture
To achieve this, it is recommended to maintain an upright posture, aligning your head, neck, and spine. This position enables your diaphragm to fully expand and contract, which is essential for breath support. When you sing, air flows through your body, so slumping your shoulders or hunching over can restrict your diaphragm's movement and impact your vocal performance.
One practice to improve your posture is to sing while lying down. This position naturally keeps your back and shoulders straight, training your muscles to maintain proper alignment when you stand up. Additionally, you can engage in exercises that promote diaphragmatic breathing, such as deep breathing exercises, to enhance breath support and ensure balanced resonance throughout your vocal range.
It is also important to be mindful of any bad habits or tense postures that may hinder your vocal performance. Changing muscle memory and default physical habits takes time, so be patient with yourself and focus on correcting one habit at a time. A vocal coach can also help identify and correct any physical habits that may be impacting your vocal health.
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Breathing techniques
Diaphragmatic breathing, or belly breathing, is a powerful technique to train your vocal muscles. It involves using the diaphragm, a dome-shaped muscle below the lungs, to draw in breath. This type of breathing ensures that the lungs are fully inflated with oxygen, providing enough air to produce a strong and healthy voice.
To practice diaphragmatic breathing, start by sitting or standing up straight with good posture. Place one hand on your belly and the other on your chest. Inhale slowly through your nose, feeling your belly expand and press into your hand. Exhale slowly through pursed lips, drawing your navel towards your spine. Keep your shoulders, neck, and upper chest relaxed as your belly expands and contracts. Repeat this process for 5-10 breaths, working towards holding each inhale and exhale for a count of 5.
Another breathing exercise involves inhaling through your nose for a count of three, then exhaling through your mouth for a count of four. Aim for longer exhales than inhales, as this helps slow down the exhalation process, preventing tension and ensuring a consistent sound.
Panting is another effective exercise to develop stamina. Hang your tongue out like a puppy and place your fist between your ribs. Vocalize the word "ha" on different notes of a scale, feeling your fist move with the movement of your diaphragm. End each scale with a long sigh to relax.
In addition to improving vocal health, these breathing techniques offer emotional benefits such as stress relief, anxiety reduction, improved sleep, and a boost in mood. They can also help manage vocal cord dysfunction (VCD) and reduce symptoms of anxiety.
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Frequently asked questions
Training your vocal muscles is similar to training your body's muscles. Start with a warm-up to improve blood circulation to the muscles, then move on to stretching and loosening the tongue and jaw muscles. You can do this by humming scales or tongue trills.
To train your vocal muscles, you can try doing scales with a goal in mind. For example, if you want to learn a mixed voice, you can twang a lot to go lower. You can also try tongue-trills or the tongue-R exercise to strengthen your vocal cords.
It is important to be aware of your throat and mouth muscles when trying to hit certain notes or pitches. Maintaining good posture while singing is also important as it helps your diaphragm open fully.
You should avoid straining your vocal cords by skipping warm-ups or singing in high registers when you are just starting out. You should also avoid smoking as it can irritate your vocal cords and change your voice.
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