How to warm up before an audition

Warming up for an audition is just as important as warming up at the gym, although instead of injuring your body you could be injuring your chances of landing the job. The added pressure of walking into an audition room can tighten your voice and body through tension so it's even more vital that you get that warm-up in before hand so that you can give a physically free performance.

Time is obviously important as you'll often only have around 10 minutes to warm up before going in so you have to tailor your exercises accordingly.

Start with the body as the more you release this the freer the voice becomes also.

Working from the ground up:

- raise your knee to a right-angle in front of you and rotate your foot 5 times clockwise, 5 times anticlockwise. With your knee still raised, imagine your leg is a window wiper and hinges at the knee. Swing your lower leg from side to side keeping your knee in the same place but pivoting with the action. Place your foot back down and repeat for the other side.
- Place your hands on your hips, standing shoulder width apart at the feet and roll your hips 5 times one way, 5 times the other.
- Moving up to the arms, imagine them as a windmill and rotating at the shoulder swing one in a circular motion, first forwards then backwards. Repeat for the other arm.
- Now up to the head, maintain a grounded posture and let the head fall forward so your chin touches your chest. Now slowly rotate your head one way and then the other. Try and relax your jaw so that as your head is falling backwards, your jaw is hanging loose and relaxed.
- Now picture your spine as individual vertebrae and your going to roll down through the spine SLOWLY, starting at the head, let it fall forward to your chest. Now let the kneck fall forward and slowly roll down vertebrae by vertebrae towards the ground until you are hanging with your arms towards the ground, supported by your legs. SHAKE OUT ALL THE TENSION as you hang.
- Now in reverse, starting at the bottom of the back, slowly roll back up through the spine until you are back in an upright position. Your head should be the last thing to come up.
- Now standing there relaxed, imagine a thread runs right down through the centre of your body from the middle of your crown straight down to the floor. Imagine someone is pulling that thread gently from the top and straighten up your posture accordingly.

We are now moving onto the voice.

-Firstly, get that diaphram engaged. Place both your hands over your stomach at the bottom of your ribcage and pant just like a dog (seriously). Vary the speeds and you should be able to feel the diaphram expanding and contracting with the panting. Continue this for a good 30secs to 1 minute until you feel it working.
- Just gently massage your jaw. If you are unsure where to massage, put your hands on your jaw and tense the muscles. You will feel where they tighten.
- Now count your teeth (all of them) with your tongue. Twice one way and twice the other.
- Now gently hum with your mouth closed and chew the hum around in your mouth so the sound moves. If you want place your hands on your face and feel where the vibrations move to.
- Pick a line of a song, or a poem you love and now put your tongue out as far as it will go. With your tongue out say the line of text 3 times as clearly as you can. Don't worry if this means you need to slow your speech down. You should feel an ache at the back of your tongue as you exercise it.
- Now for diction. repeat Be,De (burr, durr) as quickly and as cleanly as you can and then after 15 seconds or so reverse it. Now repeat this with Ge, De (gurr, durr) and Me, Ne (murr, nurr)
- A tongue twister. With your tongue back out say this phrase "Billy button bought a broken buttered biscuit, but where's the broken buttered biscuit billy button bought?" repeat 5 times.
- Finish with a big yawn and stretch and shake everything out.

You are ready. And this is not just for auditions either, it is a beautiful way to start your day!

Go get em!