Warming up your vocal cords like a professional

The Cambridge Dictionary defines elocution as:

"The art of careful public speaking, using clear pronunciation and good breathing to control the voice"

But before we focus on precise articulation and pronunciation, we must first focus on a suitable warm up for our vocal cords - just like how you'd stretch out your muscles before a workout at the gym. We too must put the muscles we use for speech and producing voice through their paces. This makes sure they work efficiently and effectively.

Vocal warm ups are particularly useful if you mumble, have a slightly muffled sound, have a lisp or any other kind of consonant issues. If you are ever accused of being unclear, or if people often ask you to repeat yourself, a few minutes a day getting your tongue, lips and palate into gear, will do you the world of good!

Warm-ups and tongue twisters are great for targeting your tool set (the bits of your instrument that you articulate with).

What happens when we speak?

When we speak, a series of events happen. Breath from our lungs travels up into the voice box, and our vocal cords vibrate to make an audible sound. That sound to be shaped by articulators, such as the lips, the tongue and the teeth. It is at the articulation point where people can get into difficulties, a lazy tongue can for example lead to a mess of sounds, very far from the clarity we associate with being a good communicator!

So if you think you under articulate, or if you have a speech coming up and are concerned your audience won’t be able to tell you d’s from your t’s, then indulge in a bit of vocal warming up.

Some of our favourite warm-ups are below. Just do these exercises for ten minutes a day for ten days and you will see noticeable results!

Warm up exercises 

Warming up your facial muscles

Let's start with the face. Carrying out these jaw stretches and massages helps to warm up your face so that it can shape and form vowel sounds with efficiency and land consonants with clarity. Give the following a try:

• Massage your jaw and face
• Encourage your jaw to loosen by using the heels of your hands to open it and leave it open for a few seconds
• Chew on an imaginary piece of toffee, making sure your mouth is closed and imagine the toffee gradually getting bigger
• Make your face as small and then as big as you can. Do this three times

Warming up the tongue

Your tongue is a large muscle that needs working out to keep it strong, much like any other muscle in the body.

Try the following warm-up exercises to focus on the rate and range of movement your tongue has and for extra precision in your speech:

• Clean the front and back of every tooth using the tongue three times
• Point the tongue, holding it still for 10 seconds. Then relax the tongue. Repeat three times
• Circle your tongue around the front of your mouth, ten times clockwise and ten times anti-clockwise.
• Stretch your tongue towards the nose, and then the chin
• Now add some speech sounds, repeating consonants at high speeds:

BDG BDG BDG … (sounds like ‘budiga’)

PTK PTK PTK… (sounds like ‘putika’).

Giving your lips a warm-up

Your lips not only help to shape sounds, they also serve as the point of release for our speech. If your lips are tight and unmoving, then it will have a detrimental effect on the clarity and the power of what you are wanting to say. This routine of lip exercises will aid your placement of sounds and provide an all round stretch to help wake up these important articulators:

• Blow through the lips like a horse (you will not be able to do it unless you are relaxed)
• With teeth closed, spread the lips into a smile, and then into a pouting shape
• Putting your lips into a pouting shape close and open them (like a fish). Do this ten times

Tongue Twister

Now you're limbered up, lets wrap our mouths around some tongue twisters and really put your instrument through its paces:

Whether the weather is cold
or whether the weather is hot
we'll weather the weather whatever the weather
—whether we like it or not.

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers
Where’s the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?

Betty Botter bought some butter
But she said the butter’s bitter
If I put it in my batter, it will make my batter bitter
But a bit of better butter will make my batter better

Don’t worry if the tongue twisters got the better of you this time, with practice you’ll soon master the art and become a lingual wizard.

Try working your warm-ups into your morning routine. Imagine a quick round of tongue twisters just after brushing your teeth to start your voice, and your day, in the right way. Also use your exercises prior to those speaking occasions where you need that little extra oomph, your presentation at work, that speech to the board or the job interview you know you will ace.

After just one cycle of vocal warm-ups you will feel instant changes to you spoken output, with increased power to your voice. After several days, you will start to see noticeable changes to the quality and clarity of your elocution. Sharper consonants. More distinctive vowels. And a big smile on your face.

Want to find out more about our elocution lessons and bespoke communication courses? Book a free 15-minute Discovery Call to speak to an expert.