In the process, I reviewed over 60 scholarly articles and came across quite a few that I think are valuable, and I imagine I'll be sharing many of these studies with you over the next few years. Today, I’d like to share a study I found entitled, “The Effect of Vocal Function Exercises on the Voices of Aging Community Choral Singers” (linked – full citation below)

In short, community singers with aging voices either did 5 weeks of Stemple Vocal Function Exercises or were part of the control group. The results summary reads:
 
Results
After VFE training, significant improvements in perceived roughness, maximum phonation time, jitter, shimmer, and noise-to-harmonics ratio were found for participants in the VFE group. However, evaluations of perceived breathiness and strain and phonational frequency range did not reveal significant changes. The VFE program was also generally perceived by the participants to have a positive effect on their voices.
 
What are the Stemple Vocal Function Exercises?
These exercises, often used by speech language pathologists, are designed to strengthen and balance speaking and singing muscles, improve vocal fold efficiency (adduction), and coordinate systems used in speaking and singing.

Article Citation:

Ya Lian Tay, E., Phyland, D. J., Oates, J. (2012). The effect of vocal function exercises on the voices of aging community
​choral singers. Journal of Voice, 26(5), 672.e19-672.e27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2011.12.014

Vocal Warm Ups are important for singers - ideally, we want to be singing every day.

Before we get into all of the reasons that singers should warm up the voice, it is important to briefly answer the question, “what are vocal warmups?” - my approach to vocalizing combines the idea of physically making sure the voice is ready to sing with the idea of using warm ups as vocal training and vocal exercises. So, for our purposes, “vocal warm ups” includes the idea of warm ups AND exercises. Once you’ve been using your voice each day, whether it is singing or talking, there generally isn’t too much need to “warm up” the muscles as you might as an athlete, but the vocal warm up period can be used to physically and mentally put ourselves into the best possible singing space - remembering how to stand, how to breathe, working out any registration issues, and ensuring efficient vocal fold vibration. The “why” of how to warm up your voice is closely related to the “how” of how to warm up your voice

Reasons to warm up your voice as a singer.

1 - Mental focus: Ensure you are connecting with your best techniques.
2 - Release tension: Tension is the enemy of freely produced singing.
​3 - Improve your vocal skills: Vocal warmups and exercises can be used for regular, focused skill building.
4 - Focus on breathing and alignment: Working on short exercises allows us to focus on the basics. 

Understanding that vocal warm ups are important, we can discus how to warm up the voice.

• Looking for more vocal warmups? Check out my YouTube Channel at www.youtube.com/khansenmusic
  

Vocal warm up app coming soon! Learn more here: www.warmupswithkathleen.com