Best Voice Warm Up Exercises You Should Try

Would you run a marathon without stretching first? Your voice needs a good warm up in order to work properly, that’s why we're going to show you the best voice warm up exercises you should try.

Best Voice Warm Up Exercises

So why warm up your voice at all? There are actually 3 main reasons...

• Reduces strain.
• Improves the fullness of your voice so you can better pronounciate.
• Helps eliminate vocal fatigue.

Start off by loosening up. Stand up and stretch. Loosen your neck and shoulders with some simple exercises. You may feel a bit silly stretching just to warm up your voice, but trust me, it really does wonders!

Don't Get Your Tongue Twisted!

Tongue twisters help develop your tongue muscle memory for better pronunciation and are good vocal warm ups, for example, try saying:

Should saucy sharks seek shelter soon?

This tongue twister helps improve S and SH sounds. Try saying it slowly, then get fast each time you do it. Focusing on tricky words like this improves your ability to use these types of sounds more easily and with greater clarity.

Tongue Twisters You Should Try

To get you loosened up, we've put together 5 different tongue twisters to warm you up. Remember to pronounce each tone as best you can at first, then repeat it over and speed it up as you go along.

5. R and L Vowels (Very Easy)

The first exercise is your R and L vowels.

Red letter, yellow letter, red letter, yellow letter, red letter, yellow letter.

4. Palate Sounds (Easy)

Sounds that move from the front of your lips to your soft palate and back again.

A proper cup of coffee from a proper copper coffee pot.

3. Ooohs and Aaahhs (Medium)

Makes you move your lips from an “ooh” shape to a flatter A shape to get your mouth fluid.

Wendy went to Wales to watch wrens riot.

2. Forward Tongue Placement (Hard)

This one is a bit risky (you will find out why!), but it helps for forward tongue placement.

I am not a pheasant plucker, I’m a pheasant plucker’s son, but I’ll be plucking pheasants, when the pheasant plucker’s gone.

1. Soft Palate (Very Hard)

One of the more challenging ones. It helps work the soft palate and back of the mouth.

Six sick hicks nick six slick bricks with picks and sticks.

BONUS (Ultra Hard)

Finally, let’s try a really difficult one to see how well you do.

Three sweet switched Swiss witches,
Watch three washed Swiss witch Swatch watch switches,
Which sweet switched Swiss witch watches,
Which washed Swiss witch Swatch watch switch?

There we go! How did you do? Which one got your tongue twisted? Let us know in the comments. Hopefully, your voice is now warmed up and ready for action!