The piano is a great tool for helping vocalists warm up their voices.
Allowing you to remain in tune and avoiding going off pitch, the piano offers a quick and easy way to get the vocals warmed up.
This stretches the various muscles used for vocals to help avoid injury and keep you voice in top shape.
Better still, you don’t even need to know much about playing piano to warm your vocals.
There are many basic exercises where you simply use the piano as a guide to your vocal pitches, ensuring you singing within the right pitches after your vocal warm ups on piano.
Singing Major Chords
The first exercise involves singing along with major chords. This is a great
way to find your pitch and try increasing your range as you get better, so is useful for vocalists of all levels.
If you have someone playing piano for you it’s quite easy as they simply play solid and broken major chord scales up and down the piano.
If you are playing on your own, start by finding middle C.
Look for the two back notes in the middle of the piano. Place your thumb on the white note right of the two black notes.
Now take your middle finger and skip one white key, pushing down on the following key, which is E.
With your pinkie, skip another white note and push down on the following note, which is G.
Play all three together to play a C major chord. Try playing this note solid and broken a few times and sing on syllables of the note (use any syllable you wish!)
Now, you simply move up to play the next major chord – just move each of the three fingers up to play the next possible note.
Try each major chord up the piano until you reach the next C chord, then try playing down the scale, all while singing along with each chord both solid and broken.
Practice various chords singing along as you play, even trying different speeds.
Other Useful Vocal Warm Ups On Piano
There many other ways to use piano to warm your vocals, but due to the more advanced nature of these techniques we recommend using someone with piano experience so you can focus solely on your vocals.
Extended Octaves –
Much like playing major chords, this exercise involves playing the chord but adding an octave (the same note as the bottom). Play both solid and broken, singing along with the broken with a syllable of your choosing. Due to the longer range involved, this exercise shouldn’t take too long to complete.
Five Finger Patterns –
Start with a solid chord and then fill in the notes using a five-finger pattern. Sing along with the five numbers (1-5) or choose a syllable and sing along with the patterns, going up and down. click
Singing Along with Intervals –
Many popular songs played on piano feature intervals and singing along with these are a great way to warm the vocals. These can be played ascending and descending, with popular examples including Happy Birthday, Mary Had a Little Lamb, Auld Lang Syne, and Saints Go Marching In.
