Exercise 1. The Guy Fawkes warm up:
Practice saying, “Remember when, remember november” as a warm up before singing.
Repeat ten times.
Exercise 2. The Hungry warm up:
Practice saying,“But please, please feed me very soon”
This gets your mouth used to producing the plosive consonants, the lower lip on the upper teeth in ‘F’ and ‘V’, and finishes off with a sibilant.
Exercise 3. Seashore saleswomen.
You probably know this one, as it is a tongue twister:
“She sells sea shells on the sea shore”
This prepares your mouth for differentiating between the sibilants, ‘S’ and ‘SH’
Exercise 4. Question time.
“Why? where? when? how? what? which? Who?”
Yes, it’s those lip muscles turn to get fit!
Try this an alternative way: pronounce the ‘H’ before the ‘W’ - it’s an old fashioned way of pronouncing the words, but requires an unusual production of consonants which has been mostly forgotten. You can do it with all but the words “How” and “Who”.
Exercise 5. Alphabet.
Try singing this to the tune of “Twinkle twinkle little star” in a different way:
“Abacus deaf goat igloo jockey
Lemon squeezy opera queen
Ravioli estephan
Ultra violet light rays too
Weary and excellent
Like a Yugoslavian zoo”
Total nonsense, yes, but the idea of it is that you are singing the letters as they are pronounced. (for instance, ‘double you’ doesn’t sound anything like ‘W’, does it?)
© Tina & Ben Henderson 2007
Vocal performance tutorial index
Tutorial 3 - Lip twisters
Tutorial 7 - Volume production