Vocal warm ups with voice pathologist Aaron Low

Toronto-based speech-voice pathologist and singing voice scientist, Aaron Low, works together with ENT physician, Dr. Alex Osborn at Toronto’s The Voice Clinic to help each of their patients improve their voice.

Whether you’re a school teacher, lawyer or opera singer, you need your voice to last without faltering and it can be tricky to pinpoint exactly what it going on when the tool that you rely on starts to feel weak.

In this video, Low demonstrates how to correctly warm up your voice while strengthening it and he also teaches us why we shouldn’t take a deep chest breath before beginning to speak or sing.

“When somebody steps up to a podium and they take a breath and it comes up into their ribcage … your throat tightens,” Low explained. “Your voice box says, ‘I’ve got to hold on now.’ It’s very much like blowing up a balloon.”

He continued, “When you blow up a balloon, it has an elastic recoil. Your ribcage has a recoil. If you were squeaking the neck of [an inflated] balloon, that would be like speaking or singing on a chest breath.”

Learn more about Aaron Low, Dr. Alex Osborn and The Voice Clinic by heading here.

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