Dear Vocalist:
Again, this is a re-posting! This one might have been censored for length, but again, I never found out exactly why. Thanks for your patience! Your feedback on these issues is very important to me, so I beg your indulgence in reading these re-posts of mine.
Jana ---------- From: "jjh" <jjh@n...> To: Vocalist <vocalist@v...> Subject: the hows and whys of warming up (was Re: arpeggios) Date: Mon, Feb 21, 2000, 6:07 PM
On Thu, 17 Feb 2000, Lloyd W. Hanson wrote:
>A comment here on warm-ups. I basically do not believe they are very >necessary. The vocal folds warm up as quickly as the eyelids. They >are among the fastest muscles in the body. But that opinion is, >perhaps, a moot point. Most of what singers and teachers call >warm-ups are really vocalizes whose function is to teach necessary >vocal skills. Vocalizes, of course, are the core of any valuable >vocal training. And I find most singers vocalize on a daily basis >because they need to re-mind the voice about how is is supposed to >coordinate and function.
Dear Lloyd and List:
I'm a few days behind in my digests (Nebraska snowstorm + dead battery=snow days!). The comments Lloyd made above appeared in the thread on arpeggios, and they piqued my interest.
The topic of "warming up" the voice seems to be a bit of a gray area in pedagogy, because specific research into the conditioning and fitness of vocal (laryngeal) muscle tissue has not been done yet. However, extensive research on warming up has been conducted in the fields of exercise physiology, kinesiology, and sports medicine, and this research has been applied to the discipline of singing in several recent publications.
Through the VoiceCare Network course, and from reading "Vocal Exercise Physiology" (Saxon & Schneider, Singular Publishing, 1995) I have learned about the principles of training, and have been thinking for the last few years about how they might be applied to singing.
For example, warm-ups. A warm-up for an athlete brings increased blood flow to the muscles and surrounding tissues, therefore bringing up the temperature in those tissues gradually (i.e., "warming" the tissues). This is an extremely critical aspect of athletic training, because to work out or compete on "cold muscle" increases the chances of injury. Here is a passage from Thurman's "Bodymind and Voice" (p. 307) that might be helpful in understanding the hows and whys of "warming up":
Warmups "Before you use your voice vigorously and/or extensively, you need to increase blood flow to your vocal muscles and vocal fold tissues, raise their temperature, stimulate lubricating mucus flow, and "tune up" your bodymind neuromuscular programs for vigorous, high-speed, but precise and smooth movement (Vegso, 1995a). Those changes strongly contribute to short-term flexibility, elasticity, agility, and endurance of your vocal muscles and tissues, *if* [* added to denote italics in original text] warmups are done in a way that encourages those benefits. Specifically, appropriate warmup results in (1) capillary dilation with increase of blood pressure and volume, (2) tissue temperature rises, (3) muscle contraction gradually becomes more rapid and forceful, (4) compliance-elasticity-flexibility of ligament, tendon, and other connective tissues increase, (5) sensorimotor nerve reactivity and conduction velocities increase, as do joint flexibility and range of motion (Saxon & Schneider; 1995; Vegso, 1995a). Before vigorous use, optimum warmup of any muscle takes about 15 to 20 minutes of relatively steady use. The vocal warmup process begins with minimally strenuous vocal muscle use and tissue collision forces, plus slower, simpler muscle movement. Then there is a gradual progression of increased vigorous use. Vigorous voicing, in order of importance, includes (paraphrased greatly from original text): 1. gradually higher and higher pitches 2. gradually louder and louder vocal volume throughout the capable pitch range 3. gradually faster and faster speeds of larynx muscle movement 4. use of the lowest four or five pitches within the capable pitch range."
In the above passage, the citations for Saxon & Schneider refer to the book mentioned above; the Vegso citations refer to "Principles of Strength Training," article in "Current Therapy in Sports Medicine," 3rd edition.
In the same chapter of Bodymind and Voice, Thurman affirms that the laryngeal muscles are the second fastest in the body (eye muscles being the fastest), as Lloyd pointed out. I believe (someone please correct me if I'm wrong) this is because some of the laryngeal muscles are of the so-called "fast-twitch" variety of muscle fiber.
However, I'm not sure I'd agree that the speed of muscle response necessarily translates to a quick warm-up. For me, starting the voice on "cold muscle" causes a feeling of strain which continues throughout the rehearsal. Also for me, talking is not an efficient warm-up. My average speaking pitch is nowhere near the higher pitches that I need to sing in many arias, songs, and even choral tunes. I confess that my speaking voice does not have the resonance and support that it should, so trying to use my speaking voice for a warmup would be like searching for meaning in a Pauly Shore movie (which is to say, futile. This is one of my favorite lines from the movie "Clueless!". Pauly Shore movies are none too "deep," for you non-USA or non-MTV generation listers!).
I have discovered, especially in recent years, that my warm-up routine is most efficient and effective when it is sequential, following the four steps outlined above. How long does it take me? I'd say I spend an average of 10 minutes. Most days I do this in the car on the way to work. 10 minutes, and I can get through most rehearsals (opera, oratorio, choral, or just a practice session) with maximum efficiency and effectiveness. On a really, really good day, perhaps 5 minutes. On a bad day (if I'm slightly under the weather or tired, experiencing allergy symptoms or those annoying asthma flare-ups), more than 10 minutes; maybe as many as 15-20. I also try to stretch my warm-up routine a couple days a week, to give myself a really good workout and hopefully to continue conditioning and strengthening the laryngeal muscles.
Fascinating topic; I'm glad you brought this up, Lloyd. And I agree with you 100% that the art of vocalizing is an integral part of voice study. When I sing and work with my students, there are exercises or patterns that I use for warm-ups (mostly slides and glides), and vocalises that I use for musical reasons or to work other aspects of technique.
If anyone would like to know more about this topic, I highly recommend this section from Bodymind and Voice (Book Two, Chapter 15), or the Saxon and Schneider book. Both are extremely readable. Or if you like, I've written a summary/article on training for my students. E-mail me privately if you'd like a copy. There is also a (cautiously optimistic) Jean Westerman Gregg commentary on vocal exercise physiology in the Journal of Singing, Volume 52, No. 4 (pp. 47-49).
Cheers!
Jana -- Jana Holzmeier Dept. of Music Nebraska Wesleyan University 5000 Saint Paul Ave. Lincoln, NE 68504 jjh@n... 402-465-2284
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