Jenny Hoye

30 October 2017
MUED 376

Warm-Ups

I found the documents on warm-ups to be really helpful. When doing the assignment on

lesson planning, I touched on warm-ups in commenting on the idea of teaching for transfer,

and it made me realize that I had not given much thoughts to how important the structure of your

warm-up is, so it was good to delve into this topic more.

I like Jordans idea of deconstruction and reconstruction. In vocal technical warm-ups,

you are deconstructing the speaking voice and our normal physical and vocal habits and

reconstructing proper habits for good singing. Beginning with the body is important, and

physical warm-ups including methods like the Alexander technique help realign the body for

good singing posture. Setting the breath comes next. Then, you ease into basic vocal warm-ups,

which should always start in the mid-range. I knew not to start really high or really low, but

specifically starting on an E flat or a D as we do in our JMU choirs was something I didnt

realize was so intentional to help with audiation and phonation. Following the basic warm-ups,

you can slowly move into range extension, moving up and down, and harmonic warm-ups.

I also appreciated the advice to never make the warm-up longer than 7 minutes. Im sure

there are exceptions if theres something in the warm-up that specifically ties into the repertoire

or is really needed for the choir, but I have been in rehearsals where warm-ups have dragged

because the director gets stuck on something, and they stop serving their purpose and the choir

disengages.

What I liked most was the idea of repertoire-based warm-ups. Using the repertoire that

youre going to be working on to inspire warm-ups that feed directly into the vocal techniques,
tonality, style, rhythm, etc. is teaching for transfer and strikes me as a highly effective teaching

behavior. Thats a concept Im going to keep with me. While its important to build a base of

effective warm-ups that can be more universal and applied to many rehearsals just for simply

building good techniques, I really like the idea of contextualizing the warm-up in what the

rehearsal threads and repertoire of the rehearsal will be.