成人快手

A cartoon of Ella Fitzgerald singing into a microphone.

Warming up our voices

Our voices and our body need to get ready to sing to help us perform our best.

To do this we warm up, just like we do before a PE lesson or workout.

A cartoon of Ella Fitzgerald singing into a microphone.
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Stand up straight

For our voice to work well, we need to use our whole body to support it.

Which picture do you think shows the best way to stand, ready to sing?

A girl in two postures. Posture A she is standing straight and ready to sing. Posture B she is slouching and looking down.

Ruby with hands on hips ready to warm up her body.

Let's warm up our body.

  • Put your hands on your hips.
  • Imagine you're standing on a big piece of paper and your hips are a pencil.
  • Keeping your feet still, can you draw a big circle or a square?
  • Now move your hips to write some letters, try starting with an 's' or 'w'.
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A boy with a shocked expression showing he has taken a very short breath.

How should I breathe?

Singing takes lots of breath.

Singers practise taking deep breaths in. When breathing in, they try not to move their shoulders.

Songs will have different length gaps between the words, where we will be able to breathe in.

If there is a short space to breathe, we can use a short breath, like someone has shocked us.

A boy with a shocked expression showing he has taken a very short breath.
A boy blowing up a balloon to show how your tummy can fill with air when you take a deep breath.

For a long breath, we can take a big, deep breath in. This fills our tummy up with air like we are about to blow up a big balloon.

Can you take a deep breath without moving your shoulders?

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Vocal warm-ups

Making different sounds helps us to warm up the different parts of our voice, ready to sing.

Try making these sounds to get your voice ready to sing.

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Glossary

Here's the meanings to some important words.

Pitch - How high or low a sound is.
Posture - The way we stand when we sing.

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Activities

Quiz

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More on Singing

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