The Latest, Greatest Warm-up

Presented by Andrew Larson, D.M.A Associate Professor of Choral Studies, Stetson University
alarson@stetson.edu; 386-822-8971 FMEA Conference, January 2012 Tampa, FL

Presentation Notes and Handout

Introduction and Premise
Many choral conductors are greatly interested in the discovery of warm-ups (vocalises) that will be new and exciting to their choir members. (It is a passion ranking a close second to the discovery of that next great composition one wants the choir to perform.) The premise of this presentation is that there is no such thing as the latest, greatest warm-up! I have heard countless elementary, middle, and high school choir warm-up sessions over the past 15 years. The distinction between choirs that perform with excellent choral and vocal technique and those that may be lacking in these areas has, in my experience, very little to do with the actual vocalises they employ during their sessions. The distinction seems to reside primarily in how the vocalises are usedin the teaching that occurs during the warm-up session. A choral conductor must speak as openly as possibly about the skills s/he wants singers to focus on. Too often we start a vocalise in a certain key, go up by half-steps until the singers cant reach the notes, then we go back down in half-steps back to where we started, and then move on to another vocalise, then into rehearsing compositions. Even the insertion of a statement such as we will now use this warm-up to practice the skill of ___insert specific skill here___ before rehearsing the next composition can put our rehearsals on a trajectory more likely to result in improvement. Much more teaching during a warm-up session would be ideal. This presentation asserts that: 1. Teachers should use Direct Instruction techniques during their warm-ups rather than having students sing endlessly through iterations of vocalises up and down half-steps. 2. Teachers should understand that just doing certain vocalises, no matter how engaging, will not necessarily improve a choirs performance. 3. Teachers should be informed about which vocalises are more likely to address a desired skill. 4. Teachers should feel free to modify any vocalise they need. 5. Teachers should run their own warm-ups in most cases (see also Helpful Reminders in this document). WARM-UP AND VOCALISE ARE USED INTERCHANGEABLY IN THIS DOCUMENT, AS THEY ARE IN MOST CONDUCTORS DAILY VERNACULAR.

Why Do Warm-Ups?
In No Particular Order: Wake Up the Mind Wake Up the Body Learn Vocal Technique in a Given Style* o Posture o Breathing o Phonation o Resonation o Articulation Rehearsal Fragments from a Given Composition * Most vocal pedagogy books focus on the five elements here in some way or another. It is a structured way to present what is clinically going on during vocal performance.

What the Experts Ask About Their Vocalises

A short vocalise is generally not a copyrighted composition. Feel free to use vocalises as they are or modify them. One vocalise could be altered to sound either legato or staccato, for example. Feel free to COMPOSE YOUR OWN VOCALISE using the questions in this section! In addition to being familiar with the list of questions provided in this section, teachers must be able to decide what skill learning should result from the vocalise or entire warm-up session. They should prepare themselves to listen specifically for that skill in the student attempts. The teaching technique of DIRECT INSTRUCTION: Teachers must have the courage to stop, give instruction or model, and then repeat the vocalise until the students improve in that skill. Too often we say good job and move on when we ought to have demanded greater skill improvement before moving forward. Teachers must use a variety of visual, aural, and kinesthetic techniques to address the skill(s) being taught in the vocalise. NO VOCALISE inherently produces desired results over time unless guidance is given in the use of that vocalise. (And even if a teacher gets lucky with a vocalise producing results with no other teaching going on, we still do not want our singers ignorant of the skills they possess. Such would limit their capacity to be future teachers or to apply the skill in other settings or other compositions.) This list is not exhaustive and is in no particular order:

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Teachers must be prepared to briefly and frequently explain to singers the elements listed in this section. For example: Class, this next vocalise begins on a high note and requires a very fast breath, so prepare your body. (Students learn, then, that approaching phrases that start on higher notes requires a certain mental and physical prowess, for example.)

Five Basic Steps to Giving a Choral Warm-up From a Voice Teachers Perspective
The process of vocalizing presented in this section gives concern to individual vocal health and techniques in coordination and vocal production. While many vocalises stress elements of BOTH choral techniques and individualized vocal pedagogy (the teaching of solo singing techniques), it is often desirable to speak and teach only about vocal technique during a warm-up, especially where inexperienced singers are concerned, as opposed to perfecting a strictly ensemble technique. A warm-up session should always include an element of solo vocal pedagogy, even if it does not process through each of the steps listed here:

1. Light Buzzing uses vocalises such as lip-trills, tongue trills, humming,

singing on ng, vocalizes that focus more on a consonant than a vowelspend more time on this if it is early in the morning. This time would include posture and breathing exercises, physicality and the loosening of joints. Often we are in a hurry and skip this step, but it can make a big difference in a choral rehearsal.

2. Mild Legato uses vocalises that employ limited ranges (perhaps only a two or
three, up to five note range), but that begin to focus on vowels and opening the voice, and getting the sound forward. Singers begin here to use more of the voice, waking up the rest of the mind and body, moving more breath and letting out more sound than the Light buzzing warm-up.

3. Onset exercises allow the voice to stop and start repeatedly.

When done efficiently by a singer, this provides an excellent muscular workout and more importantly, a COORDINATION workout. The basics of phonation (producing a tone) usually hinge on the split second where the tone begins. If one has a tense onset, they will have a tense tone, and so forth (or breathy, or rigid, etc.). Onset teaching allows a student to try in rapid succession the coordination needed to breathe and to start and stop a healthy tone.

4. Intense Legato singing allows the singer to expand upon the techniques from
the first three elements discussed here. One sings on the full voice, working to connect the voice to the body. One sings fully on the breath, with ones best vowels, with a general emphasis on mezzo forte and forte singing for singers younger than approx. 18 (this is a personal guideline for me, not a hard and fast rule). Singing at a true piano dynamic with little tension may be a more advanced skill. This section of the warm-up session is where most choral teachers tend to spend their time. Nearly every vocalise I hear in middle or high-school rehearsals falls into this category rather than into any of the other four steps mentioned here.

5. Flexibility/agility/range extensiontake the legato exercises and

move them faster, and move them up and down in wider ranges. Range extension for young singers does not mean to go up on a high note and sustain it for a long time. The premise here is that a voice in motion tends to sing with less tension and will be able to extend farther and travel faster. Many voice teachers separate the three elements listed

here in this fifth section, but in my experience with high-school aged singers and younger, a vocalise that covers one of these skills tends to cover all three. These elements are not the focus of this presentation, but they are mentioned here to give as much data as possible. If a conductor desires vocal improvement in choir members, the five elements listed here must be addressed. They form a sort of cumulative cycle in that if one breaks down, the other elements suffer (if one has bad posture it is harder to breathe, if they do not breathe they cannot phonate clearly enough to get good resonance, and so forth). Conductors can watch and listen for these elements during their warm-up sessions and make suggestions for improvement.

Choral Development Issues**

If you are not working on these issues in your warm-up, what are you doing?
TONE Pitch/Sound accuracysee also "intonation" Basic productionposture, breath, phonation Vibrato Dynamic ranges Colorsee also "vowel color" Keeping the core in the tone Vibrato/Vibrancy What is blend? BALANCE Within sections Between sections Overall volume DICTION Vowels Unification Modification Vowel Color Pronunciation Enunciation Consonants INTONATION Vocal Technique Vowels Attitude External forces (acoustics, barometer, social events) RHYTHM/TEMPO Accuracy Meter Consonantits character and temporal placement Tempo changestransitions, rubato Pick the RIGHT tempo

ARTICULATION/PHRASING Stylistic Period Dynamics Notational markingsmarcato, staccato, legato, slurs Formsmall/large forms, stylistic period STYLE How all of the above combine in an ensemble effect to create a musical AND linguistic AND cultural whole. **I learned this terminology and this list as it appears here from Dr. Ronald Staheli, Director of Graduate Choral Studies at BYU, and conductor of the BYU Singers. I have slightly adapted it since then based on my own experience.

Conducting Gestures Used During Warm-Ups

Teachers should expect to rehearse certain vocalises on their own, just as they study scores before going to rehearsal. Study of a vocalise includes singing it and deciding if and what conducting gestures may be helpful to the singers. Some obvious choices in selecting gestures include conducting basic articulation: if a vocalise is legato the conducting pattern must appear legato to the singer, and so forth. Some less obvious decisions about conducting gestures may also be helpful (in any case, one should never just beat patterns during vocalises or rehearsalsgestures should mean something and should be helpful to the students): Force your conducting to emphasize the type of breath they take between the singing iterations of a vocalise, rather than how they sing the vocalise. So, your hands and body could be much more active during their inhalation and less so during singing. This is less efficient when attempting standard conducting patterns in 2, 3, 4. Rather than defaulting to a 2 or 3 or 4 pattern, alter the direction of your hands and arms to show very clearly how energy can accrue or dissipate in a musical line, such as a vocalise. (This concept does not necessarily preclude the use of a standard conducting pattern, however.) Carefully consider the conductors mouth position and facial expression (eyes) as they relate to the skill being taught. Consider using larger gestures in warm-ups then you would for a concert. Young singers (high school and younger) need to detect significant physical engagement from the teacher in order to do likewise. Bend knees more and move around much more than you would in a concert. Singing should involve the entire body, so conducting gestures can reflect that overall engagement during the warm-up. General Physical Considerations: your hand position and relative muscle tension; your arm position and relative muscle tension/consistency; your general posture head, neck, ribs, back, legs; the height of your gestures (chin level, chest level, belt level?); conductor kinestheticswalking around room, dancing, large physical motions to show breath, tone, or music; eye contact

Every question you ask about your vocalise could be asked about your choice of physical gestures. Should my hands go right? Left? Up? Down? How far? When do I breathe relative to the students' breath? Contour? Shape? Fluidity? Rigidity? ARE YOU AT THE PIANO DURING THE WARM-UPS? Never spend the whole time there. Get up and conduct and move your body energetically so they can engage in the singing process.

Helpful Reminders
No set of warm-ups, new or old, is engaging enough to keep our singers in this business. They need to hear, feel, and know that they are making progress as individual singers and as an ensemble. The warm-up time can be the key to making that type of progress. It is probably better to work through one or two meaningful vocalises with you TEACHING and LISTENING rather than rushing through four or five vocalises during your warm-up time. Remember that you can use one vocalise to teach multiple skills, by modifying the vocalise based on the questions in this document. Run your own warm-ups in general. Many have student conductors or assistants who benefit greatly from this experience. If they run warm-ups on occasion, teach them what to listen for and how to stop the choir and ask for improvement on whatever technique you are seeking. Find many ways to give your assistants experience, but to not completely abdicate the important responsibility constituted by the warm-up. If you choose to have a daily routine in your warm-up, then know WHY and WHAT the result will be. I recommend NOT having a rigid routine of specific vocalises every day, but I recommend attending more carefully to the vocal skills they need on a specific dayso, your routine is in the selection of skills, not in the selection of vocalises repeated day after day. In the end, it is okay to use some of those fun and catchy warm-ups when you are building a sense of community, or waking up the mind, but warm-ups should never just blindly pass the time for the teacher or the student, or be a tool to simply cool ones nerves before a performance. It can always be a crucial teaching time. It is okay to use vocalises at any point in the rehearsal, not just at the beginning. They can be very useful to make rehearsal transitions smooth, or to refresh vocal technique that has stagnated over the minutes since the initial warm-up. Always tell the students what technique they are to be focused on and give them immediate and frequent feedback on as many iterations of the vocalise as is necessary to produce improvement. Never skip the step of telling the students what skill they are working on. They deserve it, and their generation demands itthey may even feel entitled to it. As a matter of evaluation, I always ask myself did I demand too much, or too little of the singers today during warm-ups? 7