Having an Off Day Vocally? Try This Warm-Up for Tired Voices

You ever wake up and your voice just... isn’t it? That was me today. Stiff. Heavy. Sluggish. Not what I’d call performance-ready. I knew right away that if I wanted to sing (or even just speak well), I’d need to give my voice some serious love. So I figured—why not turn this into something useful for both of us?

Let’s break down why your voice might be feeling off—and more importantly, what you can do to turn a rough vocal day into a good (or at least workable) one. Because the truth is, we don’t always have the luxury of taking the day off—especially if there’s a performance or recording on the schedule. That’s why it’s so important to explore where your voice is at and learn how to work with it, not against it, on those less-than-ideal days.

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Why You Might Be Having a “Crappy Voice Day”

Let’s be real: not every day is going to be a good voice day. Sometimes it’s because you overused your voice the day before. Other times, it’s lack of sleep, stress, dehydration, or even skipping your vocal cool-down (yep, I did that yesterday 🙃).

There’s a long list of reasons why your voice might not feel great:

• Heavy voice use the day before

• Skipped vocal cooldown

• Poor sleep

• Lack of hydration (this makes your vocal folds stiff!)

• The female cycle

• General fatigue or stress

• You're just not feeling 100% (like you’re getting sick)

And the wild thing is... these aren’t even "mistakes." They’re part of life. Because unlike a piano or guitar, your body is your instrument—and that comes with all kinds of variables. So while there are things that you can do to help you get your voice back on track, just know that this is totally normal and please give yourself some grace on off days.

Slowly Waking Up Your Voice

Pushing through is never the answer - I hope you already knew that. All that does is make it worse in the long run. So instead, what you can do on days where your voice doesn’t feel 100% is a longer and more mindful warm up. Not one of those quick 5-minute vocal checks, but something deeper and more supportive for my voice and body.

Here’s how you can get your voice to wake up:

• Step 1: Stretching

  Check in with your body. Are you feeling any physical tension anywhere? Is your back sore? Did you clench your teeth while sleeping and now your jaw is tight? Stretch out and massage any spots in your body that feel tight.

• Step 2: Humming

  Instead of just blindly following scales on big open sounds already, start out by just checking in with yourself on a gentle hum. Explore your comfortable range (don’t go too high or too low just yet) and stay soft - think mix voice or like a sigh.

• Step 3: SOVT

  SOVT stands for Semi Occluded Vocal Tract and helps you use your voice in the most efficient way possible. The most common SOVT sound is Lip Trills, but you can also do a pufferfish, raspberry, tongue trill or sing through a straw (straw phonation). This will gently and efficiently bring your vocal folds together, reducing any tension you might be feeling. Still stay within a comfortable range - no need to push your limits yet!

Depending on how off your voice is feeling this first part can take anywhere from 5 minutes to 15 minutes. Please be patient with your voice and don’t just move on the next part where you’ll be exploring the limits of your voice. Moving on too quickly will only lead to tension, which will make it much more challenging to get your voice to where you want it to be.

Exploring Your Limits

Now that your voice is feeling a little bit more warmed up it’s time to gently explore today’s limits of your voice.

Range Expansion

I love doing a flageolet exercise to explore how high my voice can go. Flageolet is a super small and squeaky sound - perfect for not letting yourself push your voice too much! Instead of explaining how exactly you should do this exercise, let me just show you.

Be sure to keep your mouth shape small, the sound really quiet and squeaky and don’t be afraid to try multiple times to get the top notes before turning around. Sometimes it takes your voice a couple tries to get it.

Agility

If you’re anything like me and your voice is feeling stiff or heavy, doing some vocal agility exercises is great to keep your voice light and moving. The flageolet exercise is already a type of agility exercise, but you can also do second one that’s a bit more bouncy and doesn’t go quite as high. When you’re doing agility exercises, be sure that you keep them fast and that there are big note jumps. Below is an example for an agility exercise that I like to do on days where my voice just doesn’t feel that great.

Now Let’s Open Up

If your voice is starting to feel better after all these exercises you can move on to exploring your belt and sustaining long notes. I only recommend doing this if you’re voice is feeling pretty good up until this point and/or if you have a gig that day and you absolutely have to get your voice ready. If you don’t have to sing that day and your voice is still feeling kinda off, it’s ok to stop your practice here and just call it a day. There’s no need to push your voice and there’s always tomorrow where you can try again.

If you are exploring your belt/chest dominant mix, just know that you don’t have to be loud and keep a stead breath flow. You can always go back to doing an SOVT sound if you feel yourself getting too heavy or shouty. Same goes for your sustained notes. Keep the breath flowing and release any tension you might be feeling.

If you need help with releasing tension, check out this post.

Let’s Warm Up Together

💡 Takeaway: Your voice isn’t broken. It’s just asking for a little more care today.

So instead of fighting it, listen to it. Adjust your warm-up. Slow down. I promise you in cases like this you’ll move faster when you take your time with each exercise and really feel into the notes you’re singing.

If you’re having a “meh” voice day too, or you just want to have this longer warm-up in your back pocket when you need it, I recorded the whole thing for you (including explaining what I’m doing, why I’m doing those exercises and how I’m adjusting them for where my voice is at that day). Let’s take care of our voices—and ourselves—one note at a time.

🎧 Watch or listen to the full episode here

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