One of the most common questions that comes up in sessions, workshops, etc, is “Mark, what does YOUR practice routine look like day to day?“. So that’s what we’ll cover today. This also extends to “what should anyone’s practice routine include day to day”.
The general answer works for most voices, but the specific exercises each voice should do will vary. I have updated this to reflect what my absolute up-to-date practice routine looks like.
Each section will start with what I specifically do for my voice, followed by what that translates to in a general sense.
1. Lip bubbles = to warmup and initially balance the voice
We all know that warming up is important, but it’s not about slamming the voice as hard as it will go, nor being so tentative nothing gets going. It’s about gradually acclimatising the voice to whatever is about to follow. We also want to start to balance and registrate the full range of the voice.
If you can’t access notes through easy lip bubbles or an equivalent appropriate warmup exercise, you’re probably not ready to access it in later exercises. Read: If it isn’t easy, you’re forcing it.
I do lip bubbles across a variety of scales and over my whole range, but rarely more than 5-10 minutes worth. After which time I’m normally ready to progress to something a bit more intense.
2. ‘Ah’ as in ‘Bat’ = to get an appropriate level of contraction going on in the vocal fold structure
This is a more advanced tool choice for introducing more muscle into someone’s voice, and represents a more extreme version of “getting appropriate contraction going”. I also go to this sound by progressing through OTHER vowels in the relevant vowel family (ee > ay > ih > eh > ah)
In any voice, once warmed up, we want some level of contraction to be worked into the voice, both for stability and also to generate the fullest and deepest harmonic spectrum in the voice. I do this on ‘ah’ as in ‘bat’, across a few scales, but typically longer scales, from the bottom of my range to the top (and back again).
For other voices, other sounds will be more appropriate. Even for me, I’ll sometimes pick a less extreme tool for my own voice if I think my vocal condition that day warrants a more cautious approach.
3. ‘Gee’ = to introduce stretch and laryngeal depth to go with the added contraction
We are always seeking balance in the voice. With more contraction, we typically want to find more stretch and release to go with that, i.e. not ending up with strain as a result of excess contraction. We also don’t want the larynx sitting too high (e.g. as a result of excess extraction, or simply through the nasty/pharyngeal sounds).
‘Gee’ as a sound (especially when done dopey) is wonderful for accessing higher registers, maintaining tight control over the vocal tract, AND keeping the larynx down throughout all of this. The ‘G’ component helps to maintain the extra contraction we established in step 1, while the ‘ee’ component encourages us to access the higher registers and higher resonances.
‘Goo’ is often an appropriate substitute, but for the time being, I’m using gee.
4. ‘Fee’ = to find release and sustain vibrato
I use this is on a particular scale that starts higher in my voice and descends. I sustain the top note to find the depth I had on ‘gee’ (which gained contraction and stability from the ‘ah’ of point 2), but I don’t have the ‘g’ component to assist.
This helps move to a more balanced sound that isn’t dependent on the consonant to get power behind, i.e. more balanced. I sometimes choose to sustain each note on the descent of each exercise instance, across my full range.
Vibrato is not just a helpful tool for vocal development, it is also a helpful double-checking exercise to ascertain that our voice is not too contracted or too stretched out. A freely spinning vibrato only comes into a voice when it’s sufficiently in balance, so it’s an excellent test. The better your vibrato feels and sounds, with no feelings of dread about it, the more consistent your voice must inherently be functioning.
5. A dipthong like ‘ay’ to see how co-operative my voice is after all this
Dipthongs are two vowels stuck together. When you say ‘ay’ as in ‘bait’, you are actually saying ‘b-eh-ee-t’ – that ‘ay’ is ‘eh-ee’. Similarly with the word ‘book’, it is pronounced ‘oo-uh’ (except in certain dialects, like Newcastle, which is pronounced as a pure ‘oo’).
When done on an exercise, these require utmost precision in the voice, as we are trying to shade the vowel precisely between two other pure vowels. If someone’s voice is too heavy on a given day, it will often pull excessively towards the more open vowel of the dipthong. If someone’s voice is too light, it can often flip into the more closed vowel of the dipthong. Either way, it is tricky to do, and as such tells us a lot about a voice on a given day, however the exercise comes out.
If the exercise comes out well, then it is also helpful for truly dialling in the control of the vocal tract at that stage. If it doesn’t come out well, we can skip it or move to something more conducive to dialling the voice in on that day.
6. Three songs = rubber meets the road, each song works my voice into the next
I have, at any given moment, 3+ songs that are my ‘go-to’ songs to get my voice in shape from the exercises. I may well do more exercises after points 1-5, or intersperse others in between those points, but that’s the rough trajectory I go along.
With the songs, I want to check the co-ordination in a real world scenario. It’s not enough that my voice is performing in exercises, the rubber has to meet the road. I pick each song so that my voice feels better coming out of song 1 than it did at the start. This puts my voice in a better state to tackle song 2, which in turn should leave my voice feeling better as I finish it than when I started, and so on.
This means that songs don’t eat up my energy or vocal facility, but continue to build my vocal facility as I progress. This does require solid technique and a brutal honesty about how capable you are of doing a given song in a given key, but this is the strategy I employ when working on my voice in song.
This is a hard lesson for many to learn from. I’d recommend last weeks article for a deeper dive into this topic.
BREAK then repeat.
Often I will take a short break (10-15 minutes, sometimes a bit longer) and do the whole thing again, or dive into something more specific on any one of these aspects. This is to further ingrain the specific vocal behaviour I’m seeking into my voice.
Conclusion
This covers my specific practice routine, as well as the more general reasons why we want these things in each of our own practice routines. I generally apply a similar logic to one-on-one sessions, to build a tailored experience and vocal workout routine in each lesson, building on the one before.
Those of you who study with me will recognise a lot of similarity in the sounds we use in your voice, e.g. lip bubbles to warm up, some heavier sounds, some pharyngeal sounds, some dopey sounds and some vibrato – as these represent the key functions your voice must be able to lean on at any given moment. There are – of course – other attributes within the above that I could highlight which each contribute to such a good practice routine, e.g. vowel control, volume control, stamina, etc, but this is a quick overview of what I do and why.
I trust that this is helpful or at least revealing for many of you. Any questions, let me know.
Learn More: Related Articles
If you want to learn more about vocal technique and great singing, you may enjoy these related articles:
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