Singing

Ten tips for older singers

Flexibility – we lose elasticity in our muscles as we age but you can sing well into your nineties so do those Handelian runs, they are good for you! Engage your lower abdomen with trampoline exercise and panting like a dog. (The trampoline exercise is my name for octave staccato leaps.)

Connect all your range, do the falling sigh with no breaks, sliding up and down from as high as you can to as low as you can.

Release tightness in the jaw and tongue, neck side to side, not rotating but loosen all that area around ‘Clapham Junction’ in the neck.

Release the pelvis with hip rotation and release the knees.

Extend your breath capacity – we start to lose this from our twenties so we do have to work at keeping it as large as possible. Rib swings are good. Breathe OUT first!

Keep the ears alert, upright posture like a hare on its hind legs listening for danger – we lose our hearing of upper partials from the age of 5 so singing from 0-5 years is good because it cements aural memory!