Vocal exercises usually consist of musical patterns such as arpeggios and scales sung using various consonant/vowel combinations, such as 'gee-gee-gee'

Each exercise will tend to have a particular effect on your voice. It will affect the way your muscles coordinate to create sound. So exercises are selected based on your vocal development needs. A skilled teacher will listen to your voice and understand, from what they are hearing, how your coordination needs to be shifted in order to achieve good voice production

If you haven't yet been for lessons with a teacher, you first need to understand your development needs. You can use our online vocal assessment service to find out

If you are currently in vocal development with a teacher, you will probably have a good idea what exercises your teacher is doing with you at the moment. It is worth asking your teacher to recommend exercises for self-study, as these may be different to what you are using in lessons. Also bear in mind that as the exercises work to change your vocal coordination, the recommended exercises will change

If you are a more advanced singer, you will know your vocal tendencies, and  just which exercises you need for your daily fitness work.

How often and for how long?
In practising we are training the muscles and developing awareness. We are also developing the ability to be instantly ready to sing. Short sessions - 10 to 20 minutes - done often (once or twice a day) are more effective than a long session weekly. 

Exercises by Function
This is a very simple guide to selecting some basic exercises according to your current vocal tendencies. In a guide like this we can only deal with basic issues. Only a skilled teacher can guide you to the subtleties of vowels expression and development of the power belt and other more advanced techniques.

Vowel Formation
The correct formation of the vowels is not only the aim of exercises but is also necessary for the exercises to begin to work in the first place. It is a circular process, continually improving our knowledge and understanding of vowels. So when doing exercises it is most important to try to produce the vowels in the way your teacher has shown you.

Refer to the exercise patterns on our exercise-player for use with the following:

For release
12-note with goo. Use foo if you are still sticking on the bridges.

For cord-closure
 

• 12-note with the edgy hum (make sure not to lift your tongue)
• Octave Repeats with Nay