Vocal exercises should have a point. They should teach some kind of vocal technique, and students should be aware of what they mean. If the teacher is asked by a brand new student for a few warm ups just to get the voice going, a couple of minutes of unexplained exercises might be appropriate. But, spending more than five minutes on something without any explanation wastes valuable lesson time.

Example of an Enthusiastic Student: A 16-year-old male comes in warmed up and enthusiastic about finding his head voice for the first time.

He now wants to know how to sing without breaking between the chest and head voice. I tell him he needs to learn to mix the two registers, so when they meet there is not an abrupt shift. I explain how sliding through notes will help him. I ask him to start in his head voice, because he has just found that register. I ask him to simply do a yawn-sigh to start. Then a long glide from the top to the bottom of his voice. I then have him sing ‘ah’ on a chromatic scale, while taking breaths between each two notes and singing each microtone between the tones.

I run the exercises from the top to the bottom of the voice, as well as bottom to top. Most likely, the entire lesson will be spent on vocal exercises. But if my student tires of it, we work on a song he already knows or a new one requiring the use of his new skill. Throughout the lesson, he asks questions about posture, breath support, voice placement, and resonance. I politely say questions not dealing with registers and shifting between them can wait for another lesson, or else we will lose our focus.

I remind him singing takes time to learn and next week we can go over another concept.

Example of a Passive Student: A 12-year-old girl is taking voice lessons, with no previous choral or piano experience. She does not know how to read music and her goal is to feel comfortable singing solos in her local church. The first five minutes of each lesson are spent on helping her to learn how to read music using solfège. Afterwards, I work on one or two exercises out of a book such as “Thirty Daily Exercises” by J. Concone. I worry less about perfection and more about introducing new concepts through the exercises. For the first exercise in the book, I teach a balanced phonation and onset. She sings with a breathy tone, a pressed tone, and then finds something in-between. I apply the same concepts to the onset. She then practices the exercise, and I introduce other exercises not in the book to help her.

I always mark the date when we ‘pass off’ an exercise, so she feels she has accomplished something. Questions are encouraged, but not expected. I ask exploratory questions and listen carefully. Lessons are adjusted based on her answers or how fast she is learning. The lessons are geared towards introducing all vocal concepts, but some we pass over quickly depending on her level of interest. The parents are directly involved at the end of the lesson, by making sure they are present when I tell the student what she should practice for the next lesson and when reviewing what concept we covered. After reviewing most of the vocal concepts, I go over the ideas again with a new exercise book and expect more of her. We pick a few songs requiring techniques she previously showed less interest in, in order to encourage her to learn.

Example of an In-Between Student: An adult female comes in having years of experience singing solos. Her voice is pleasant to listen to, but she lacks the knowledge and training to advance to the next level of singing. She comes in with a jazz piece she performs frequently but would like to perfect. She sings her song to me and it becomes clear she struggles to take a deep breath between phrases. It causes her to end up tired at the end of her piece. We discuss a deep inhalation, how to shorten a note in order to plan for a breath, and we apply it to a specific section of the song. I also warn her about “stacking her breath,” which happens when you do not use all your air before taking an additional breath. We work through the section until she can sing it with ease. I then ask her to work through the rest of her song the same way at home.