Vocal Training Exercises

Soon after the 'preliminary' stages of the basic exercises, you'll shortly begin your vocal training exercises based on the needs of the material you're going to perform. Analyze the pieces or song that you're performing, and identify what are the skills which are necessary to perform it.

If you are practicing a piece that will need you to reach the extremes of your vocal range, you will definitely choose exercises that are designed specifically for that. You will need to perform flexibility techniques when the song has a lot of very quick runs or trills in it. For songs with many different notes needed to be sustained, you may want to work on air support as well as control. This article will suggest vocal training exercise for various functions.

Vocal Training Exercises for Low Range

For you alto and bass vocalists, the following are exercises for you. Regardless if you are a soprano or tenor, these exercises can be useful to you if you are performing a part that is lower than your usual range.

Descending octave slides. Start on a pitch close to the middle of your range. It ought to be comfortable for you. Using the lip bubbles ("bzz" or "brr"), slide down a scale one octave from the starting pitch, moving down by half steps. Try repeating this using some other vowel sounds or syllables such as "oo", "ah", "vee" or " voh".

Fifth slide. Once again, making use of lip bubbles or the syllable "vaw", start on a comfortable pitch and go down a fifth (so - do), moving down in half-steps. Then include a third tone, move back up to the starting pitch (so-do-so). Bear in mind, move down in half-steps. Finally, do it reverse (do-so-do)

Vocal Training Exercises for High Range

These workouts are very helpful for you sopranos and tenors, but altos and basses who need to work on their high range will find these useful too.

Up and down arpeggios. This is an easy broken chord going up and down: do-mi-so-do-so-mi-do. Move upward by half-steps with each subsequent repeat, using the lip bubbles or a vowel sound or syllable of your choice.

Upward arpeggio and downward octave with turn. This is a little bit more complicated version of the previous exercise. Vocalize the arpeggio upwards (do-mi-so-do), then do a turn (ti-do-re), then the 8-tone descending octave scale from do to do. Use those vowel sounds; do some on "ee", some on "oo", and some on "ah". Begin each different arpeggios a half-step higher then the last one, as displayed in the pattern below.

ee-----------------------------------------

oo----------------------------------------- etc.

Upward arpeggio with repeated high note.One other version of the arpeggio is very helpful with keeping a light tone on those high notes. With the syllable "ha", vocalize the upward arpeggio (do-mi-so-do) and then repeat the high do, staccato, five or six times. Look at the pattern down here.

Vocal Training Exercises for Flexibility

Ascending triplet scale. This particular exercise is quite complex to explain but its easy if you read the following notes below. Using the solfege syllables (do, re, mi, etc.), vocalize an eighth-note triplet upward beginning o n each syllable. Once you reach the top of the scale, go backwards and vocalize each triplet downwards. Sing the exercise as fast as you can.

do re mi fa so la ti do ti la so fa mi re do

Ascending and descending thirds. This is another one that is easier to sing than to explain. Beginning on the base note, go up a third, down a whole step, up another third, etc. until you reach the fifth tone, then reverse back and go back down a third, up a half step, down a third, up a whole step, etc. Again, try to sing it as fast as you can.

Rapid repeated up and down five note scale. This one is straightforward-just go up and down a five tone scale (do-re-mi-fa-so-fa-mi-re-do) and repeat.

Vocal Training Exercises for Breath Support and Control

Buzz-slides. The buzz is one of the best exercises for breath support. Start on a mid-range tone and slide down a fifth-so-do. Repeat several times, moving down by half-steps. Then buzz the descending triad-so-mi-do--sliding between tones. Again repeat several times, moving down by half-steps. Finally, buzz a five\-tone descending scale-so-fa-mi-re-do.

Messa di voce. For this exercise, sing a comfortable mid-range pitch on "ah". Sustaining the note, begin very softly and get gradually louder, then softer again.