I’ve been attending a great series of physical and vocal warmups on Wednesdays, presented by Katarina Henryson and The Real Group Academy. She leads a group on Zoom for a 40-minute warmup that leaves me feeling recharged, ready to sing, and inspired.
She pointed out today that her warmup has been nearly identical each week, and explained that this is a feature, not a bug. A big part of the warmup process, for any singer, should be to assess how your body and voice are feeling. Doing the same warmups you did yesterday and the day before is a great way to know exactly where you’re feeling confident and where you’re feeling shaky.
I’ve recently been feeling hesitant about using the same set of warmups week in and week out with my group – thinking I should expand my vocalist vocabulary. But with Katarina’s perspective, I’ll continue to use the best warmups I know each week, and couple that with reminding my students to use that time to specifically check in with their bodies and voices, and pay careful attention to comparing how they feel to past warmups.
Of course there are moments when you want to use a specific warmup to prepare a choir for the repertoire they’ll be singing in rehearsal, or to shake things up and wake up their brains; but using the same set of warmups regularly is a valuable strategy.