Here are exercises that I find suit most of my particular client-base:

· SIRENS: My all-time favourite warm-up! There are many different types (from ‘lighter’ to ‘heavier’): e.g. lip trill, tongue trill, hum, ‘oo-ee-oo’ (CD1 Track 3), ‘ng’, lip trumpet, ‘yay’! etc.

· “MESSA di VOCE” (long, held note on one pitch): A breath-management workout exercise brought down to us from antiquity. I use different lengths according to ability level, and I vary the dynamics, pitch range and vowel shapes to keep it challenging

· ARTICULATION: Dynamic, percussive, rhythmically-driven consonant workouts

· AGILITY: Speed exercises and/or big interval jumps that workout the voice, and for stylistic application to pop they should be mostly based on the major or minor pentatonic scale

Why are they helpful for your clients?

· SIRENS: Great way to gently warm-up the whole range and a great way to smooth out the ‘break’. I have my own take on this standard vocal warm-up which features on my 2^nd vocal exercise CD and which I nickname the “ever-growing siren exercise”. It’s where the siren starts with only an octave in an easy range and in 10 steps goes further and further apart till it gets to 3 octaves (CD2 Track 4)

· “MESSA di VOCE”: I use this ‘golden oldie’ exercise routinely to help clients develop efficient cord adduction and subsequent breath control. A 20-second ‘mini’ version of it features on my 1^st vocal exercise CD (CD1 Track 6). It directly challenges the ‘air valve’ function of the vocal folds. You never know when you’re gonna need that long note to be there for you in a song!

· ARTICULATION: In the more funky end of the commercial repertoire that I teach, sloppy articulation is not acceptable stylistically. Snappy, rhythmic consonants can be a crucial part of the energy and drive of the vocal delivery. Exercises such as “The Tip of the Tongue, and the Teeth and the Lips” (CD1 Track 7) and “Tick Tock Tickety Tock” (CD2 Track 7) challenge the articulators – it’s using the voice as a percussion instrument!

· AGILITY: Vocal agility is another important ingredient of the repertoire that many of my clients sing therefore it needs a good old working out. It’s my personal philosophy that the vocal exercises people use should be based on the style of music they sing, therefore I have a range of agility exercises of my own making (e.g. CD2 Tracks 12 & 13) and some based on snippets of already existing well-known songs (CD4 “Challenging Riffs”).

Lastly, here are my top 3 tips for choosing exercises for inclusion in your vocal ‘diet’. They’ve gotta be:

1. Fun: you gotta like them and look forward to doing them and maintain the desire to keep doing them. Keep it varied to keep it fun too!

2. Effective: they’ve gotta actually work otherwise you’re wasting your precious time!

3. Relevant: they should be as much as possible in the musical style that you sing so that you can see how the exercises apply to songs!

To check out more details of Kim Chandler’s innovative and popular-selling “Funky ‘n Fun” vocal training series, including audio clips, track listings etc, visit www.funkynfun.com