In this Season premiere of Vocal Tips in 10, I'm offering a gentle reset for the new year.
You'll reflect on what worked and what didn't in your vocal journey in 2025, using clear prompts to help you set supportive goals and intentions for 2026 - without the pressure to do it all at once.
The episode also includes five simple vocal exercises to ease your voice back into motion, making it perfect if you've some time over the holidays and want a way to reconnect to singing.
00:00 New Year Reset: Reflecting on 2025
03:44 Vocal Warm-Up: Exercises for the New Year
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Hi friends and happy new year! Welcome to my first episode of 2026 and today is all about a new year reset. I just want to look back, do a little bit of reflecting on the previous year, talking about what worked, what potentially didn't work, and what things we might want to set intentions for for this new year of 2026 for our voice, mind, and body because we are our instrument.
And then I also wanna give you guys a little bit of a new year vocal workout. I don't know about you, maybe you spent your entire holiday season or if you got a break, I sure hope you did. maybe you spent that just singing nonstop. I did not, and I'm gonna bet a bunch of you didn't. We had a sick household, my son got the flu, I got something, germy
It was low key, it was not feeling great, and I'm just now ready to get back into things. And I'm gonna bet I'm not the only one in that situation for whatever reason. So I wanna give you some exercises to really help you kick off this new year vocally feeling good.
the first thing I wanna do is I want us to reflect upon what worked in 2025.
My first prompt for you is what made you feel really good vocally over this past year? Was there something that you did
an exercise, a practice routine, songs that you worked on, a way that you approached things that really felt good felt enjoyable, made you feel more confident, and made you sound better, made singing feel easier and sound better. Always the things I'm working towards
what did you do or what things did you do that you can reflect upon that made you function better, feel better, feel more confident and made you have some fun with it. So that's prompt one. Think about what really worked. And like I said, whether it's really specific technical stuff, a new kind of artistic direction that you might've
leaned into or explored, or maybe you found a way to schedule things that made you feel a little more aligned, little more balanced, in not just your voice and your career endeavors, but your life. Because again, we are our instrument.
And then the second prompt is gonna kind of be the opposite of that. What did we do? What things happened? What occurred in this past year that did not seem to work, that wasn't effective, that didn't feel good?
we can look at specific things like technique. we can maybe look at artistic directions that we went into because we thought we should, but they just didn't feel good. They didn't feel true. They didn't feel authentic.
So what didn't feel good? What made you feel less confident? What didn't give you the results that you wanted, In whatever way.
And as much as you can, try and get specific. So that way, when you set your intentions for 2026, what didn't feel good? So what can we do differently to make this year more effective in every way, right? Vocal health, technique, artistry, voice, body, mind as a whole person. And then
this can be really good information gathering that we can then set some intentions or resolutions or plans for the new year with. And I don't think you need to have 20. And I also think that many times 20 not going to be the most effective, right?
a handful, one or two.
can be a great place to start. And also it doesn't have to be like for the year, some people do this quarterly, I do that. I kind of think about what I want for the year, kind of break that up into quarters. You know, can every few weeks at the start of every month, check in with yourself, you got to figure out what works for you. And then I think it's important to remember, you don't have to do everything.
all at once. If you feel like a slower start is better for you, that is A-OK.
Okay, now let's jump into some singing. Again, like I said, if you were like me, I didn't do a ton of singing over the break, over my break. And generally I sing many hours every single day of my life, at least five days a week, many times more.
So I love these exercises to really get myself back into the singing gear, get those vocal folds connected, vibrating, stretching, moving, Get things feeling good and sounding good again, and then ramp it up from there. So I wanna give you a few exercises. One of them is my favorite that you can do anywhere, or it's one of my favorites that you can do anywhere. It's a gentle H N hum.
It's like if you said hun and you go right from that H to the N. It's a completely nasal sound. If you pinch your nose, the sound will stop, You don't have to have your mouth open. can. Nothing's coming out of the mouth though. It's a nice resonant sound. It is an SOVT, semi-occluded vocal tract sound, which means your mouth is partially closed. That's the end of your vocal tract.
It sets up your vocal folds really ideally. I like to take it gently, hold it for about 10 seconds, work it up and down my range. It's a gentle warmup to get things buzzing. I start many of my days with just this gentle H N I end many of my days with this too. The other thing is if you are a little strung out or whatever, this can be a really great, this nice
Gentle, buzzy humming can be a really great reset for the nervous system too. There is a reason when you meditate or when you're doing many kinds of yoga, you hum. That's a great nervous system reset. So this is a great one. And then I love to take other SOVTs. You can stay with this HN. You can move to something like a lip trill, like a raspberry. Take your straw into water, a blowfish, a smiley V. There's so many SOVT options.
whatever feels good for you but a semi-occluded vocal tract sound, which means your mouth is partially closed, to again set up those vocal folds as ideally as possible. Many of these SOVTs have other benefits like releasing tongue tension with a raspberry, like breath management with a lip trill, like resonance if you do a nice buzzy V, or resonance with that nice HN, and start with small sliding intervals. So let's say we start with a sliding third.
You take that up and down your range, just two of those guys. it feels so good. And then if those feel good, you expand it further, go to a sliding fifth. that just means five notes apart, by the way, a fifth, five notes apart, a third.
three notes apart, right? plunk it out one, two, three, four, five in the piano. That's your fifth.
and then to expand your range further, take another SOVT. These can all be the same sound, or I like to switch things up. So maybe I do a lip trill because that's great for breath management, or my straw into water, because that's great for breath management. And I get good massage of the vocal folds. And then I go to a raspberry because that releases my tongue. And then I go to some kind of yummy, resonant sound, right? Whatever feels good for you. But I like to arpeggiate an octave, which just means we're plunking out the notes of that octave chord. One, three, five, eight.
but I'm
All of these you can take up and down your range. They are all gentle. They feel good. Again, voice, body, and mind. They get those vocal folds ready to go. And then if you wanna do just a little bit more athletic, kind of agile activity, five note scale repeated. And let's actually do five notes descending. that's it. Sofa, mi, re, do, or.
Five, three, two, one. Right? Or if both of those are confusing for you, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. But let's do this on ne nay, no, new. So the in is our buzzy resonant consonant that gets that sound nice and resonating forward in the vocal tract. And then we're gonna switch our vowel sounds because when we sing songs, our words have different vowels, e-a-o-u. Ne nay, no, new.
Speed it up as you feel better. These are just some great exercises starting really gentle ramping up from there to work out, work with this week and beyond to make your voice feel good, to make your voice sound good. I'm so happy to be back guys. I hope you all had wonderful holidays, a little bit of a rest, a little bit of a downtime, whatever it is you celebrate, wherever you are.
Thank you for being here and I can't wait to see you in next week's episode. Bye.
