Kyle and I had the warm up for our workshop for the first years. We did some research on the Alexander technique; it’s not technically a voice warm up it more of relaxing the body and about the body posture, which is defiantly important for you vocal chords.

 “The technique teaches the use of the appropriate amount of effort for a particular activity, giving you more energy for all your activities. It is not a series of treatments or exercises, but rather a reeducation of the mind and body. The Alexander Technique is a method which helps a person discover a new balance in the body by releasing unnecessary tension. It can be applied to sitting, lying down, standing or walking”

“The Technique's basic idea is that when the neck muscles do not overwork, the head balances lightly at the top of spine. The relationship between the head and the spine is of utmost importance. How we manage that relationship has ramifications throughout the rest of the body. As the boss -- good or bad -- sets the tone for an organization, the head / spine relationship -- compressed or free -- determines the quality of the body's overall coordination.”

We got everyone in pairs and let one person lie on the floor totally relaxed while the other person massaged their head and jaws, underneath their ears, this helps relax the jaw. The next thing we done was have them all pretend they were eating a big piece of toffee, this relaxes the jaw and opens the mouth and it’s also warms up the tongue. We also done another exercise were you put your head down, open your mouth then tilt your head back towards the ceiling slowly, then close your mouth. This is all about stretching the jaw and warming up and stretching the neck, which is also important for you voice, especially if you’re going to be singing .

Tongue twisters.

Tongue twisters are great for warming up the jaw, mouth and sometimes vocal chords. Our aim was to say them as fast as possible but for them to still make sense. When I do tongue twisters at my singing lessons we only say the first line of a twister, we say it twice slowly and four times quickly.  It helps get the sentence out faster and stays correct.                                                                                 
 Here are some examples:                                                                                                                         -Peter piper picked a peck of picked pepper     

 -She sell sea shells on the sea shore                                                                                                                       

  -Three Fluffy feathers                                                                                                                                                                

 -Red leather yellow Leather                                                                                                                                     

 -Horrible holidays are highly Expensive

We created some of our own Tongue twisters here is one we made:

European unicorns united for the European union of European unicorns