Vocal warm up exercises are an important part of any voice lesson.  Warm ups help improve vocal preparedness, performance skills, and vocal health.  In adaptive voice lessons, I often incorporate some element of music composition, speech/language, or writing skills.  One warm up experience I have explored with students is composing a short reverse poem.  My rules for a simple “reverse poem” is to create four lines that are sung forward, and then in reverse.  (With traditional reverse poems, when they are read forward they convey a specific feeling, and then when read in reverse, they convey the opposite feeling.)

In my adaptive voice lessons, I prefer to use a number system for sight-sighting exercises over a solfege system.  So, the first step is to provide a number-based sequence to sing.

Reverse Poem 1

Have the student sing each line in order.  Next, sing the entire exercise backwards.

reverse-poem-2

Have the student select a topic to write about.  If this is initially challenging for a student, I usually provide 3-4 topics to choose from.  Example: My day, no time for…, what I am feeling, my favorite thing to do.  Write the lyrics above each number.  You may need to add an extra note to match the rhythm of a word.  Below is an example from one of my students.

reverse-poem-3

Then, sing the warm-up in reverse order, and start with the fourth line instead of the first.

reverse-poem-4

Here is another example from one of my students:

reverse-poem-5 reverse-poem-6

For additional composition ideas, create individual lines of musical sequences.  Cut them up and spread them out on a table.  Have a student select several to create their own warm-up exercise.