7 Essential Daily Vocal Exercises (You Can’t Miss These)
These proven exercises are guaranteed to improve your choir singing
Choir music is a celebration of the human voice. Just think of all the incredible notes we can hit, all the rich timbers and depth of feeling we can reach when we work together! But if we want our choir singing to be so good we can even win the World Choir Games, we need to do daily vocal exercises.
In this post, we bring you the essential daily vocal exercises you can’t go without. By integrating this into your daily routine, you’ll be able to sing better and longer. You’ll also make sure that you aren’t damaging your vocal cords while you do it!
The most important techniques, however, are the ones you actually do every day. So make sure that you build a routine that you know you’ll commit to.
1. Breathing Techniques for Projection
Breathing techniques power your singing. Without air passing over your vocal cords, you couldn’t produce the beautiful choral pieces that we all love.
So, building a strong breathing technique is the foundation for everything else. Breathing exercises will bring three main benefits:
- Build actual air capacity in your lungs: With more air at your disposal, you can increase your volume and also reduce the number of breath breaks you need to build into your performance.
- Improve control: Control of airflow is critical for accuracy in your singing. This helps you get the exact volume and pitch you are looking for!
- Reduce fatigue: With greater control and capacity, you’ll stay oxygenated while using lots of air for singing purposes. This has numerous proven health benefits that will enrich your quality of life and your singing.
2. Vocal Warm-Ups to Stay Flexible
Vocal warm-ups get your voice ready to perform without overstraining it. Just like warming up your muscles before heavy exercise or playing sports, choir singers need to be careful that they warm up their voices before doing strenuous singing.
Getting yourself a routine that is effective and enjoyable is a non-negotiable for choir singers. To learn more, check out this deep dive on vocal warm-ups with Justin Stoney.
3. Expand Your Vocal Range
Your vocal range represents the limit of choices you have in notes. It’s like the keys of your voice’s piano — but unlike a piano, you can add keys to the high and low end if you work at it.
Like so much of vocal performance, the vocal range has to be trained with disciplined effort. So, making it a part of your daily routine ensures that you make steady progress without overdoing it.
Interested in making this part of your daily practice? Check out our guide on expanding your vocal range safely.
4. Agility Drills to Stay in Key
A major part of training choir singing should focus on vocal agility — which gives you the ability to execute quick note sequences and clean runs.
Practicing scales, arpeggios, and staccatos form the fundamental training exercise you need to work your agility every day. For an added challenge, vary your speed and the complexity of the melodies you are looking to precisely mimic.
5. Strength and Stamina Training to Build Vocal Endurance
Whether you are singing along with everyone else or performing a solo, building a strong voice with plenty of stamina always comes in handy.
As a member of the group, being able to hold up a strong voice for long periods of time makes you a reliable team member and a real asset to any choir. And if you ever solo, it’s absolutely essential that you are ready with the power to sound out through a performance hall.
6. Articulation to Improve Your Singing
Clear communication is key in choir singing, so you want to ensure that every word is understood by the audience.
Luckily, practicing articulation is probably the most fun of the daily exercises and can be done just about anywhere. How do you do it? Try tongue twisters and enunciation drills can improve clarity and diction.
7. Relaxing Your Voice to Superpower Your Singing
So much of vocal training focuses on doing things with your voice that it is easy to forget something that is equally important — resting your voice!
Just like when you train in the gym, the voice needs to rest. Make sure that you are aware of the way you use your voice while singing in the choir and outside of it. Protecting some quiet time throughout your day is also a great way to make sure your voice is able to recover from strenuous use.
A Daily Routine to Improve Singing Voice
Dedication to daily vocal workouts is the single best way to realize the full potential of your voice and elevate your choir's performance.
Looking for more resources and insights about choral music? Check out our latest posts.
