The Singing Lesson: Warming Down Instead of Warming Up

How much time do you spend warming up your students to sing? There are countless variations of the do-re-mi-fa-so-fa-mi-re-do pattern, going up a half step each time. These can be sung on the solfège, on numbers, or on neutral syllables to promote better choral diction. This kind of warm-up is a staple of many a choir rehearsal and certainly has its place.

Now let me ask another question: After thoroughly warming up your students, what do you notice about their singing? Really listen. How is their tone, their intonation, their responsiveness to dynamics?

Here’s what I noticed with my students. Right after warm-ups, we would sing through a piece. The sound was energetic, strong…almost too strong. The tone was warm enough from middle C up to second space A. Higher than that and it started to sound pushed and far too weighty. I could see chins start jutting out. Sure, it was energetic, and might even impress some parents at a PTA program, but it wasn’t a healthy tone. It wasn’t something young singers could sustain without wearing out vocally.

Don’t just listen during the singing part of rehearsal. Right after you stop a piece or section, listen some more. If you hear a fair amount of throat-clearing (and it’s not cold and flu season) then your students are pushing too hard. I also noticed what I thought were intonation issues, especially right around that A, and even below. Why were some of the singers having a hard time matching pitch?! And there was little dynamic range. We had loud, very loud, and medium loud. Anything soft, and the sound virtually disappeared altogether.

Let’s go back to our warm-up time. If all we do are warm-UPs, this is the kind of sound we can expect to get. We are basically training our students to take their chest voice sound and carry it all the way up to the top of their ranges. The higher we climb up the staff, the more they must push. We need to devote more time to warm-DOWNs with our students.

Each of our young students has a head voice which is clear, beautiful, and healthy. What if we spend more time training young singers to bring this healthy tone down into the lower part of their range, rather than to carry their heavier tone up?

Have students sing a descending five-tone scale—so-fa-mi-re-do—on an “oo” vowel. “Oo” encourages a gentler tone and allows the singers to hear themselves better. Start on a pitch which will be above the top of their chest register—third-space C, for example. Sing through the descending pattern, then lower a half step each time, always encouraging your students to keep it light as they go down. This will be especially tricky at the bottom of the staff and below. At middle C, I often tell the students, “No need to push. Just breathe warm air on that last note.”

You can vary this exercise using descending arpeggios—do-so-mi-do—always on an “oo” vowel. Gradually incorporate other vowels, always encouraging a light, well-supported sound.

When I started warming down my students, I found that it had other benefits besides a healthy tone. Because it was a gentler approach, singers could better hear themselves and others, so ensemble singing improved.

Students whom I thought were struggling with pitch were really just struggling to sing head-voice notes with a chest-voice approach. Starting in head voice and bringing that sound down showed me that, with little exception, they could match pitch just fine! They were able to sing with greater dynamic range because they were able to produce and hear softer singing that was well-supported.

Adding Context

Warm-ups (and warm-downs) can be pretty abstract to young singers; something that has no connection to the rest of rehearsal, but is something “we just always do.” One way to make concepts more concrete is to find supportive song examples.

For younger students, a traditional song with plenty of descending phrases is This Old Man. Notice how the song starts on so, and the majority of the phrases go from high to low. In the few times where the song touches the lowest note, on “nick-nack paddy-whack” and the final note “home,” remind the singers to approach those notes gently.

Older students, who might feel they’ve outgrown This Old Man, can experience the same high-to-low phrase shapes in the traditional Liberian song Funga Alafia. This song starts at the highest point and only touches the lowest note at the very end.

Now, selecting repertoire is another matter. Notice how the vast majority of pieces start low and work their way up. This makes sense because a well-crafted piece tends to have a sense of build and growth, and range is one way to achieve that. But it also means that singers are often asked to start in a low part of their range. The following are some unison/two-part pieces which embrace the concept of the warm-down, starting in a higher part of the range with plenty of descending phrases to help bring that light, healthy sound down.

Funga Alafia arranged by Erik Whitehill
Murasame by Victor C. Johnson
Dide ta Deo arranged by Mark Weston
Why Does the Willow Weep? by Ruth Elaine Schram
Come in from the Firefly Darkness by Amy Bernon