Dan Andersen
Author of Warm-Ups for Changing Voices and the Voice in Progress
I’ve had the opportunity to work with adolescent voices for over 40 years as a choral director and private voice instructor. Developing the young voice into a mature adult voice, in a healthy way, has become a passion for me. I have found that through a
well-developed set of warm-ups, applied systematically to a choir, you can develop healthy voices and healthy singing habits. You can also keep your students more interested and less frustrated, so they might stay involved in choir through high school and into adulthood.
So, why warm up? I think we all remember back to our college voice lessons, and singing the obligatory warm-up exercises was what we did before we worked on literature. Piano lessons were structured the same way. Did we ever think to ask “why?” Well, that’s what middle school students do best! I had to have some strong reasons why we were spending time every day “not singing songs!” I’ve found that if you have good reasons why you want them to do something, most middle school students will give it their all.