Before we start, let's get ourselves warmed up. Warm-ups are a key element to any productive music session, they help us energize and refocus for our singing.
“The rule of 10%: never skip the warm-up! If you only have 20 minutes to rehearse, warm up for 2 minutes."
Matt Roughley, conductor, youth music specialist, and vocal arranger.
You can find all warm-ups from across the BBC Get Singing programme collated on this page.
Physical warm-ups
Get your bodies warmed up with ‘Shake it out’ and ‘Clapping rhythms’ from this video
[BBC Get Singing intro music]
Shivani:
Okay, we're going to get started.When we're singing, we need to warm up our bodies as well as our voices so that we can feel really energised. Especially because we're outside right now. So can you give me, show me your left hand. Show me your right hand. Show me your right leg. Show me your left leg. Great. Can you go shake, shake, shake?
Young People:
Shake, shake, shake.
Shivani:
And the other hand: shake, shake, shake.
Young People: Shake, shake, shake.
Shivani:
And this one: shake, shake, shake.
Young People:
Shake, shake, shake.
Shivani:
Shake, shake, shake.
Young People:
Shake, shake, shake.
Shivani:
Nice. Should we do the whole thing? We're going to do it twice. Okay. Ready? Off we go.
Young People:
Shake, shake, shake.
Shivani:
Nice. In between all of those, can we add a space? So we're going to go shake, shake, shake [breath].
Shake, shake, shake [breath].
Shake, shake, shake [breath].
Shake, shake, shake.
Can you hear the breath that I'm taking? Can you do that as well? Okay, here we go then. Off we go.
All together:
Shake, shake, shake [breath].
Shake, shake, shake [breath].
Shake, shake, shake [breath].
Shake, shake, shake.
Shivani:
A little faster this time.
All together:
Shake, shake, shake [breath].
Shake, shake, shake [breath].
Shake, shake, shake [breath].
Shivani:
Nice. That was really good. Well done. Let's have a go at clapping some rhythms. Have a listen.
[Clapping in rhythm]
Shivani:
Fab rhythmic stuff. Really nice. So now we're going to have a look at some of the rhythms from the song that we're going to be looking at, “Piping Down the Valleys Wild.” Have a listen to the first one.
It goes: [Clapping in rhythm] Your turn.
Young People:
[Clapping in rhythm]
Shivani:
Awesome. The next one goes: [Clapping in rhythm] Your turn.
Young People:
[Clapping in rhythm]
Shivani:
Let's put those two together. The whole phrase goes like this: [Clapping in rhythm]
Your turn.
Young People:
[Clapping in rhythm]
Shivani:
Yeah. Fantastic. Really good.
Try out the call and response game, ‘When I say one’, to get both your brains and bodies ready for singing
[BBC Get Singing intro music]
Shivani:
We’re gonna warm up our brains and our bodies ready for singing. This is a call and response game. I'm gonna shout out some numbers, and each number is assigned to a sign and a sound so see if you can get them in the right order.
Here are the actions: When I say one, you say hey! One
Young People:
Hey!
Shivani:
One
Young People:
Hey!
Shivani:
When I say two, you go woo! Two
Young People:
Woo!
Shivani:
Two
Young People:
Woo!
Shivani:
When I say three, you go shh! Three
Young People:
Shh!
Shivani:
Three
Young People:
Shh!
Shivani:
When I say four, you go more! Four
Young People:
More!
Shivani:
Four
Young People:
More!
Shivani:
When I say five, you say alive! Five
Young People:
Alive!
Shivani:
Five
Young People:
Alive!
Shivani:
Great, so that's all of the numbers. Let's see if you can fill in the gaps this time. When I say one, you say…
Young People:
Hey!
Shivani:
One
Young People:
Hey!
Shivani:
One
Young People:
Hey!
Shivani:
When I say two, you go…
Young People:
Woo!
Shivani:
Two
Young People:
Woo!
Shivani:
Two
Young People:
Woo!
Shivani:
When I say three, you go…
Young People:
Shh!
Shivani:
Three
Young People:
Shh!
Shivani:
Three
Young People:
Shh!
Shivani:
When I say four, you say…
Young People:
More!
Shivani:
Four
Young People:
More!
Shivani:
Four
Young People:
More!
Shivani:
When I say five, you say…
Young People:
Alive!
Shivani:
Five
Young People:
Alive!
Shivani:
Five
Young People:
Alive!
Shivani:
Well done. Good remembering. This time we’re gonna do combinations. So I might say two numbers or three numbers at a time, and I want you to copy me and seeif you can remember the right action.
Shivani:
One and three.
Young People:
Hey, shh!
Shivani:
One and three.
Young People:
Hey, shh!
Shivani:
Three and one.
Young People:
Shh, hey!
Shivani:
Three and one.
Young People:
Shh, hey!
Shivani:
Two and three.
Young People:
Woo, shh!
Shivani:
Two and three.
Young People:
Woo, shh!
Shivani:
Four and five.
Young People:
More, alive!
Shivani:
Four and five.
Young People:
More, alive!
Shivani:
Four and five.
Young People:
More, alive!
Shivani:
Oh, well done everybody. I hope your body is feeling nice and warmed up, ready for singing. Great job. Well done.
Have a go telling this story through facial expressions and body movements to warm up as a group
[BBC Get Singing intro music]
Shivani:
When we sing, we're also sharing a story, because as singers we get to use lyrics in our music-making, and lots of words are associated with feelings, so we need to be able to use our facial expressions to explore all of that. So let's do this warm-up. Standing on the spot, I’m gonna read out a story to you, and I want you to create an interpretive bit of movement to go along with that bit of the story. You're walking down a road and suddenly you bump into an alien.
Young People:
[stomping feet]
Shivani:
Great job.
Who is looking for somewhere to buy trainers. You explain that it's in town, second left, third exit round the roundabout. You tell the alien that it needs to be careful because the shoe shop is run by an alien-eating octopus. The alien goes into the trainer shop and sneaks around, and it finds three pairs of trainers it likes and uses a shoe box as a disguise, and gets past the owner with no problems. It pays for the trainers using contactless, and it wobbles all the way back to its spaceship. And then it thanks you with a huge flag with your face on it.
Yeah, really well done. I like how you used really exaggerated facial expressions to show the meaning of the story without using any singing, so well done for that.
Vocal warm-ups
Get your voices warmed up with sliding vowels and consonants
[BBC Get Singing intro music]
Shivani:
The canteen might not feel like the typical place to make music, but we really can sing anywhere and we've grouped you like this to see if we can make the most of the acoustic and experiment with what sound we get out of a different space. When we sing, it's like a workout and you wouldn't run a 5k or play sports without warming up.
So that's what we're gonna do first. Warm up our bodies and our voices ready to sing really healthily. So let's get warmed up with some sliding scales.
So first of all, can you try an ♪ooh-ooh♪ Try that.
Young People:
♪ooh-ooh♪
Shivani:
Nice, with the most beautiful sound that you can make, and see if you can go and hear. I want to hear all of those little notes in between. ♪ooh-ooh♪ Try.
Young People:
♪ooh-ooh♪
Shivani:
Beautiful! I love that. How about an ♪ahh-ahh♪
Young People:
♪ahh-ahh♪
Shivani:
♪ohh-ohh♪
Young People:
♪ohh-ohh♪
Shivani:
Well done. Let's put some resonant consonants to these. Can you give me a ♪vvv vvv vvv♪
Young People:
♪vvv vvv vvv♪
Shivani:
Nice and energised from down here.♪vvv vvv vvv♪
Young People:
♪vvv vvv vvv♪
Shivani:
♪mmm♪
Young People:
♪mmm♪
Shivani:
Yeah, like you've had the best lunch ever. ♪mmm♪
Young People:
♪mmm♪
Shivani:
And the last one is ♪lll♪
Young People:
♪lll♪
Shivani:
Let's try ♪vvv-vvv♪
Young People:
♪vvv-vvv♪
Shivani:
♪mmm-mmm♪
Young People:
♪mmm-mmm♪
Shivani:
♪lll-lll♪
Young People:
♪lll-lll♪
Shivani:
Fab job. Well done. Some of the words in our song are “live more love more.”Can you say “live”
Young People:
Live.
Shivani:
More.
Young People:
More.
Shivani:
Love.
Young People:
Love.
Shivani:
Love.
Young People:
Love.
Shivani:
More.
Young People:
More.
Shivani:
Let’s try warming up with some of these words. ♪Live♪ Try that.
Young People:
♪Live♪
Shivani:
I want to hear all of those slidey notes in between as well. ♪Love♪
Young People:
♪Love♪
Shivani:
♪More♪
Young People:
♪More♪
Shivani:
Beautiful. Really nice. Well done.
Follow Shivani’s warm-up singing a scale and developing the scale into a round
[BBC Get Singing intro music]
Shivani:
So now that we've got our bodies warmed up and our brains warmed up for the rhythms, let's have a go at warming up our voices. I'm going to sing you a little scale and it goes like this: ♪doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo, doo♪ Let's try that. Off we go.
Young People:
♪doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo♪
Shivani:
Awesome. Can you show me a really nice forward “ooh” mouth? Can you say ooh?
Young People:
“ooh”
Shivani:
Lovely. Let's try this scale again and make it nice and crispy and sing it with really nice phrasing. Off we go.
Young People:
♪doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo♪
Shivani:
And again!
Young People:
♪doo doo doo doo♪
All together:
♪doo doo doo doo♪
Shivani:
♪doo doo♪ Did you hear how I was singing it after you? Cool. So we're going to try that in a round this time. So this half we're going to go first and this half we're going to go second. We'll sing it twice around okay? Off you go.
Young People:
♪doo doo♪
Shivani:
Your turn.
Young People:
[in a round] ♪doo doo doo doo♪
Shivani:
And again!
Young People:
[in a round] ♪doo doo doo doo♪
Shivani:
Great singing! Well done. So we've had our scale and it was about this high. We're going to extend our scale a little higher. And if you need to sing it in your lower voice, that’s absolutely fine. Sing it wherever is comfortable in whatever octave for you. Let's extend the scale to a “da” this time. Give me a “da!”
Young People:
Da!
Shivani:
With some hands. Da!
Young People:
Da!
Shivani:
I like that. Okay, let's stand really nice and tall. Fantastic. Let's have ♪da da da da, da da da da, da da da da, da da da da♪
♪and back to our home note. Let’s try it. Take any breaths that you need to. Off you go.♪
Young People:
♪da da da da, da da da da, da da da da, da da da da♪
Shivani:
And again.
Young People:
♪da da da da♪ [in a round] ♪da da da da, da da♪
Shivani:
And we put it in a round again. Let's try that. This is going to be this team. This is this team. Let's try with you guys goingfirst. Off we go.
Young People:
♪da da♪
Shivani:
Your turn.
Young People group 1:
♪da da da da♪
Young People group 2:
♪da da da da♪
Shivani:
Very good. Well done. Really nicely sung.
Sing ‘The floor underneath my feet…’ in a round to warm up vocal range and diction
[BBC Get Singing intro music]
Shivani:
This vocal warm-up is gonna help us to explore the full range of our voices, and also work on our diction so that when we sing, everybody can hear all of the words really clearly. It’s also a bit of a brain-gym warm-up, so get ready to get the words out.
It goes like this. Have a listen to the phrase and say it after me. The floor underneath my feet feels flat.
Young People:
The floor underneath my feet feels flat.
Shivani:
And the knocking at the door doesn't bother me at all.
Young People:
And the knocking at the door doesn't bother me at all.
Shivani:
The ceiling is high and the walls are far apart.
Young People:
The ceiling is high and the walls are far apart.
Shivani:
But it all doesn't matter, 'cause I'm singing with my heart.
Young People:
But it all doesn't matter, 'cause I'm singing with my heart.
Shivani:
Awesome. ♪Have a listen to the song. It goes like this:♪
♪The floor underneath my feet feels flat,♪
♪and the knocking at the door doesn't bother me at all.♪
♪The ceiling is high and the walls are far apart,♪
♪but it all doesn't matter, 'cause I'm singing with my heart.♪
♪Sing after me.♪
♪The floor underneath my feet feels flat,♪
Young People:
♪The floor underneath my feet feels flat,♪
Shivani:
♪and the knocking at the door doesn't bother me at all.♪
Young People:
♪and the knocking at the door doesn't bother me at all.♪
Shivani:
♪The floor underneath my feet feels flat,♪
♪and the knocking at the door doesn't bother me at all.♪
Young People:
♪The floor underneath my feet feels flat,♪
♪and the knocking at the door doesn't bother me at all.♪
Shivani:
♪The ceiling is high and the walls are far apart,♪
Young People:
♪The ceiling is high and the walls are far apart,♪
Shivani:
♪but it all doesn't matter, 'cause I'm singing with my heart.♪
Young People:
♪but it all doesn't matter, 'cause I'm singing with my heart.♪
Shivani:
♪The ceiling is high and the walls are far apart,♪
♪but it all doesn't matter, 'cause I'm singing with my heart.♪
Young People:
♪The ceiling is high and the walls are far apart,♪
♪but it all doesn't matter, 'cause I'm singing with my heart.♪
Shivani:
Here's the whole song all the way through. Have a listen to it.
♪The floor underneath my feet feels flat,♪
♪and the knocking at the door doesn't bother me at all.♪
♪The ceiling is high and the walls are far apart,♪
♪but it all doesn't matter, 'cause I'm singing with my heart.♪
♪Ready, steady, off you go.♪
Young People:
♪The floor underneath my feet feels flat,♪
♪and the knocking at the door doesn't bother me at all.♪
♪The ceiling is high and the walls are far apart,♪
♪but it all doesn't matter, 'cause I'm singing with my heart.♪
Shivani:
Well done everybody. Those words were nice and clear. Good job.
Warm-up everyone’s vocal muscles with ‘Oh I love to….’, an activity packed full of steps and leaps
[BBC Get Singing intro music]
Shivani:
It's really important to warm up our voices and flex those vocal muscles so that we can feel like we're really supported and it will help us to prevent any vocal injury so that we can do the best singing possible. This is a numbers warm-up and we're gonna move in step and also in leaps. The whole thing goes like this:
♪One, two, three, four, five,♪
♪five, four, three, two, one.♪
♪One, five, four, five, three, five, two, five,♪
♪one, five, four, five, three, two, one.♪
The first bit’s nice and easy, so let's do that first.
♪One, two, three, four, five,♪
♪five, four, three, two, one.♪
♪Your turn.♪
Young People:
♪One, two, three, four, five,♪
♪five, four, three, two, one.♪
Shivani:
The next bit goes like this:
♪One, five, four, five, three, five, two, five,♪
♪Try that.♪
Young People:
♪One, five, four, five, three, five, two, five,♪
Shivani:
Well done. And then we sing:
♪one, five, four, five, three, two, one.♪
Young People:
♪one, five, four, five, three, two, one.♪
Shivani:
Let's put those two bits together.
♪One, five, four, five, three, five, two, five,♪
♪one, five, four, five, three, two, one.♪
♪Your turn.♪
Young People:
♪One, five, four, five, three, five, two, five,♪
♪one, five, four, five, three, two, one.♪
Shivani:
Let's put the whole thing together now. It goes like this:
♪One, two, three, four, five,♪
♪five, four, three, two, one.♪
♪One, five, four, five, three, five, two, five,♪
♪one, five, four, five, three, two, one.♪
♪Ready, steady, off you go.♪
Young People:
♪One, two, three, four, five,♪
♪five, four, three, two, one.♪
♪One, five, four, five, three, five, two, five,♪
♪one, five, four, five, three, two, one.♪
Shivani:
Fantastic. That is all good. Let's take it ♪up a semitone.♪ This time we'll do it a teensy bit faster as well.
♪Ready, steady, off you go.♪
Young People:
♪One, two, three, four, five,♪
♪five, four, three, two, one.♪
♪One, five, four, five, three, five, two, five,♪
♪one, five, four, five, three, two, one.♪
Shivani:
That was smashing. Well done. Let's do another one.
♪Up another semitone. A little bit faster.♪
♪Ready, steady, off you go.♪
Young People:
♪One, two, three, four, five,♪
♪five, four, three, two, one.♪
♪One, five, four, five, three, five, two, five,♪
♪one, five, four, five, three, two, one.♪
Shivani:
♪This is the last one.♪
♪And a tiny bit faster again.♪
♪Ready, steady, off you go.♪
Young People:
♪One, two, three, four, five,♪
♪five, four, three, two, one.♪
♪One, five, four, five, three, five, two, five,♪
♪one, five, four, five, three, two, one.♪
Shivani:
Great counting everybody. I hope your voices are feeling nice and warmed up, ready for singing. Fantastic job.
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