You Want Me To Sing At What Time???

Quote Of The Day:

Musicians can run this state better than politicians. We won’t get a lot done in the mornings, but we’ll work late and be honest.
-Kinky Friedman

It’s no mystery that due to our night owl lifestyle and nightly performance schedules, that singers and musicians aren’t crazy about early morning gigs. However, occasionally we have to bite the bullet – be it for a good cause or a morning television appearance to promote a new release or project.

Recently my band was asked to provide the entertainment for Vancouver’s Run For The Cure to raise money and awareness for Breast Cancer. I got the correspondence about call times for the date a couple of days before the gig. When I read the line “Band Soundcheck”, Sunday 7:00am, I almost passed my morning coffee through my nose. Okay, I’m a Mom and am used to fairly early mornings, but how do I break it to my generous band members who are donating their time and talent to the cause (and some of whom are gigging until late the night before or have to travel 45 minutes to get there), that we have to be there at 7:00am!!!!! These are the moments I don’t particularly like being the band leader. Well, I groveled and they all came through with little complaint because they are great humans.

Okay, I’ve strayed from my original intention for this blog posting and that is “as a singer, how does one prepare for such an early morning gig?”

Most of us are very aware for at least the first few hours of every day, our voices are the last thing to warm up and sound “normal”. There are a few things you can do to help get your voice warmed up so that you will be ready for that early morning gig and sound like you’ve been up for hours. Start with gentle warm-ups as listed here:

Take a nice hot shower. Get some steam into your nasal and throat passages. This helps hydrate your voice after a short night of sleep and that early morning dried out feeling. Nice deep breaths will relax you and get in the hydration you need to get things working.

Hum gently. Be sure not to stay really low in your humming range. Try sounding like Scooby Doo when he is perplexed, a kind of question sounding hum going up into your range, then reverse the direction. This will explore your full vocal range and get things warming up.

Hydrate with some non-caffeinated herbal tea. Try to stay away from coffee until after the early morning gig. Coffee is a diuretic, which will deplete you of much needed hydration that you need to get your voice working efficiently before the gig.

Once you are feeling that you are getting loosened up vocally, start incorporating a few more warm-ups like major scale triad runs (1-3-5-3-1) on “AH” and changing to “EE” in your mid-range and above or the 1.2.3.4.5.4.3.2.1 exercise (do re mi fa so fa mi re do) on “AH” changing to “EE” in your mid-range and above. Try to go a little higher each time you do the exercise. Don’t push, just breathe and sing gently. It’s called warm-ups for a reason. If you can manage to get about 15 or 20 minutes of gentle vocalizing in before your performance, you should be in good shape to hit all your Rockstar and Diva notes, no problem.

One last comment on The Run For The Cure. My Mom, Molly is a two-time breast cancer survivor. Huge thanks to my amazing band members and everyone who raised money to help raise awareness and help find a cure for this awful disease that affects far too many women in our world. Together we can make a change and Sunday was a great indication of that.