Sirens

Dog Whimper What are they for? Approximating your vocal folds along their full length. Helping you sing high and soft without pushing. Fixing breathiness and damaged, overworked vocal folds.

• Giggle release
• Anchor your face
• Let a little air out before you start – this exercise doesn’t need much air
• Start as high and as soft as you can with a dog whimper on ‘ng’ and siren down to your lowest note slowly and evenly and as quietly as possible
• Try to irradicate any breathiness with the whimper

Sirens on the Vowels What are they for? Extending range and smoothing over the break between ‘chest’ and ‘head’ voices

• Start low and siren to highest note then back down again in one fluid breath.
• This is a good range extension exercise so try and get as low and as high as you can comfortably without pushing or forcing.
• As you get higher, try and get softer and take away a little air.
• Siren on every vowel making sure that your tongue is high and forward at it’s base
• Start sirens with a simultaneous onset (ie, not breath before tone or a hard glottal attack.

If you find it hard to relax try the following:

• Start the siren and then drop your upper body from the waist like a floppy rag doll then come back up again to an erect posture for the descent.
• Throw a ball (real or imaginary)
• Imagine you’re falling off a cliff as you siren
• Wind up a siren with your hands getting faster the higher you sing
• Throw an imaginary dart

Practice playing with the end of the word SING. First, just say the word ‘sing’ then use the ‘ng’ as a springboard to play with and siren the sound up and down.