Question about warming up singing before a performace

jamesmlow2004

Hello! My name is James I am a 19 year old singer from Edinburgh, Scotland who regularly performs 2 - 3 hour sets of acoustic covers in bars during the evenings. Sometimes I find that if I do a full vocal workout earlier in the day or am practicing a lot of singing my voice can become a bit tired and weak during my performance at night. Do you think I should do less of a vocal workout during the day and simply warm up my voice before a performance or is it perhaps something wrong with my singing technique that is causing me to tire? Any help is appreciated. Thank you

Klaus_T

hi James, what kind of vocal workout are you doing? what are the songs like? which songs? the more details the better (length, type of exercises, etc). ideally a recording, if at all possible. it could be a lot of things. you seem to be convinced it is the workout and not the set. i would not be so sure there. it might be a mix. at KTVA, we train our voices 5-6 times a week for roughly an hour (beginners start at 10-20 mins and work themselves up to the full hour over time gradually). this is not optional, but rather the foundation of a healthy voice that can handle long sets with hard songs. if you do the right exercises with correct technique, you should develop stamina and the exercises should be beneficial for you in the long run. 3 hours is long though, so you simply might not have the stamina (yet), or you might over-sing (in the warmups and/or the set). you should also warm up your voice just before the set, you should start the performance not longer than about 20-25 mins after end of warmup. this is assuming correct technique in the warmup and set, and a certain stamina being there for the given set. if the set is on the edge of being too much for your voice, the warmup might add to vocal stress. if done correctly and given enough time to ease into it, however, the warmup should enable you to sing better and safer in your actual performance.

i am curious to hear which exercises you do. if you want, check out a little routine i compiled before i started the course. all the videos are freely available on youtube, and give you a good starting point. you'll find this playlist on my profile

ps: Edinburgh is a great place, been there a few times and really liked it