Stop Singing Scales This Way!! (You're Warming Up ALL WRONG)

New FREE Ear Training Course!
www.mymusicalv...
I deal with so many singers who regular use scales to warm up, increase their range, or try to accomplish other goals with their voices and they are going about it ALL WRONG.
...And it causes tons of unnecessary tension and frustration!
Let me show you how to use scales in a helpful and wonderfully experiential way so that you can grow in your singing and warm up in a way that leaves you feeling free and empowered!

[@sirseth1087]

Chris’s vibe is like in pre germ theory when everyone had these complex and misguided ideas about how to prevent disease and he was the one guy who was like “Hey, why don’t we just start with washing our hands?” I’ve never felt more mentally aligned with my voice before I put on that c drone and started building from my own comfortable range. Finding that gentle and soft place to build from has given me more strength than any complex scale exercise. Taking my voice where it wants to go instead of where I think it should be has taken it to so many awesome places.

[@chrisliepe]

Very well-said!

[@CellarStudioProductions]

The way you held your tongue when singing scales along with the acoustic guitar felt targeted haha great video

[@tysonreesmusic]

Chris is such a good guy that not only does he share his knowledge with us for free, he'll also play his short intro in a little box, up in the corner of the screen while starting the actual lesson, instead of just making us wait like 10 seconds. Seriously, this guy is too good for us.

[@calig2349]

I appreciate the way you take the stress out of the exercises, to make you feel like you're just testing out your voice and range. 💯💯💯💯💯💯👍👍👍👍👍👍

[@Steampunkguitars]

This reminds me of the beginning of “Dream Brother” from Jeff Buckler’s Live in Chicago performance. He is playing with pitch and resonance in the exact same way, and he often used it as his warm-up at a beginning of a performance. Great stuff.

[@PhuongLe-id4mn]

Free advice and free courses? THIS MAN IS GOLD.

[@markzenkov]

That Ken tamplin parody was funny 🤣

[@atomic_walnut6362]

I caught that 😂

[@DrewProject]

OMG when you started singing scales with the guitar i almost chocked laughing! Totally not expecting it. Thanks for sharing awesome content as usual man!

[@lettinggrace]

Wow so much fun, freedom, and no pressure to sound a certain way. Just have fun with the voice! So helpful, it's hard to find warm ups that work with where my range is. The mind body connection is so real. My voice feels so good and freeee!

[@ellie.rim30]

LOVE this way of warming up... I think it could be my way to make friends with my voice... thanks, thanks, thanks ❤

[@Shekler]

I've noticed when doing those scale warm ups with "hums" that I wanted to go a little off just like you, going to get "wild" with the voice, different directions and just what feels good. And I feel way more confident in singing afterwards than with the forced scale warmups. Also: my bathroom seems to have great acoustic to make this experience even more enjoyable.

[@niclasnightflame]

Thank you very much for this advice. Just a week ago I discovered that I struggle with inner tension and work against myself while warming up with scale singing. My singing teacher was wondering, because that kind of warmup is good for him. But he also told me that I shouldn't go into that state of tensing focus and I should just let my voice do like you described it. For that he often acts intentionally crazy to bring me out of concept letting me laugh. For example he just asked me out of nowhere: "Hey, a squirrel is talking to you. Which language does it speak?". These methods often help me to relax and your advice shows me the next step on this way. Thank you for everything.

[@chrisliepe]

Glad this is resonating with you Arthur!

[@JaMeshuggah]

The squirrels speak Vietnamese

[@neilbonavita8623]

Bravo bravo bravo. Thank you again, Chris!!

[@mortalflower1]

I've always done this naturally over a fixed chord on the guitar. Nice to see an instructor recommending it!

[@originalvonster]

0:45 That exercise had me absolutely howling. I've definitely seen it done like that before. 😅I think I need some popcorn for this.

[@chrisliepe]

hehe RIGHT??

[@felaunsneed3474]

Same 😂😂😂

[@jimijames27]

Oh boy I know who you were aiming at on that first exercise. I took that course before lol.

[@chrisliepe]

Hehe:)

[@MovieNerds-tp5po]

9:30 LOL !!! You are the best man !!! THE BEST!!

[@Wil_rosso]

wow chris, it's hard to believe the value in this course for free! you even take it to improvisation (to the point where i realise i can do so too quite easily. ) thank you!!

[@joestevetopping8885]

Literally opening my (Major) 3rd eye Jokes aside, I love this. Such amazing advice. I assume different drones produce different moods.

[@twillyfrost]

I do this with the vacuum cleaner. Some of my best melodies have been borne from doing chores

[@jeffrey.a.hanson]

Wanted to say thanks! I came across your channel just 2 weeks ago and met up with my vocal coach yesterday for a half hour check-in and surprised the hell out of him. You’ve become a role model of sorts. I’m an athletic looking male about the same age and it’s like you’ve opened up the flood gates to allowing myself to have fun with my voice…and have no shame in it ha! Your video on baritones was a nice kick in the ass as well. My natural voice is akin to a Toby Keith, yet got it sounding good on Black Hole Sun by letting go of that baritone barrier (ala tuning down a lot). Thanks again for bringing the excitement to sing back into my life! I no longer just have to be the guitarist ha. Will definitely check out your ear training. David’s a champ.

[@hollandrocksls]

Wow this was incredible. Thank you for sharing this. A major eye opener.

[@sebastianandrade613]

I wish I could see all this content and its courses in Spanish with subtitles, it would help me a lot, good video

[@marcoarriagadadiaz9183]

Hey Chris! Still waiting for the Luis Miguel and Tom Chaplin reactions... Great video as always

[@strayorion2031]

I really like sitting in the mayor 2nd and mayor 7th with the drone track, feeling the dissonance vibrating in your head feels really soothing, and then slowy moving into less dissonant notes feels like of tho bluesy bends guitarists do

[@AidanRogersNZ]

Haha I see what you did there... got the eyes and tongue spot on 😉

[@voyxu143]

Great advice. Thanks.

[@SpykSaturn]

Love this. I think this can be especially true for people who already play an instrument and can play by ear. You want the notes to count, not just be correct. I remember first learning how to bend effectively from learning a Marty Friedman song. You can do that bend in a million different ways, different feel and experience with each but it doesn't sound right if you just hit the note without adding that musicality. Thanks for the pep talk!

[@chrisliepe]

The "bend a million different ways" analogy is SO good for us vocalists who also play guitar! Thanks for reinforcing that!

[@ryangraham7012]

Wow this it litterlely what I started realizing over the past week I’ve been training my voice for about 5 years and have always done scales before I sing And I always have strains for a while until I get into a handful of songs . This past week I go straight into singing without scale and have zero strain

[@theolajide]

your vocal concepts always teach me a new perspective on how my voice lands in my body, it's always interesting and more importantly it works

[@G-Doggy]

Brilliant! I'm going to try it out...and record it. I'm thinking I may find some cool vocal sounds/articulations I've never thought of trying in a song before. Thank you!

[@wowawewah]

10:55 that was sick. You should try throat singing

[@mvlmvlg5417]

0:45 low key givin a jab to Ken tamplin? lmao!

[@fyater215]

I wish I could find my favorite Chris leipe warm up..

[@daaceboyy8021]

This is great 👍 so insightful

[@vickatnite_]

he dropped this 8 minutes ago you commented 5 minutes ago and the video is 13 minutes long I already know you didn’t watch it 😂

[@chrisliepe]

Maybe something at the very beginning of the video hit hard?? Haha

[@vickatnite_]

@@chrisliepe or maybe he watched it 2x speed lol

[@yawn8974]

Love it, I'm gonna go do this. Thank you so much, Chris.

[@andyyan]

Interesting idea! Traditional scale exercises are focusing on hitting the pitch, your training is more practical.

[@jamiegunn]

I love this approach!!! So effective!!! It is literally freeing up your voice, and so much accomplished in a warm up and practice by this approach!!

[@JohnnyRawks]

Love it. So good. Every aspiring vocalist needs to see this. Such wisdom. This is exactly what I have learned over the years as well. Super tutorial. I can't say enough about it - lol.

[@goodmaggie]

Ooooh so much fun. This is going to be my warm up playtime for a while. I found myself singing harmony with you Chris, then got inspired to put down a track of my own, followed by some more vocal layers of harmony and other fun, silly stuff. The new free course with David Wallimann with it's catchy earworm is also a lot of fun. Thankyou for bringing the play and fun into singing. I get too serious sometimes.

[@mattl14]

Mindful musicality! Love it. Thank you Chris!

[@SamuelJGleason]

Never been this early before, lol. Great video as always, Chris!

[@chrisliepe]

Thanks for watching Samuel!

[@MrPeter924]

Great singing song so sound 👍

[@originalvonster]

10:34 sounds like Chris Liepe is doing a famous character type voice I have heard before. I don’t know if it’s from a cartoon or film. Does anyone know of the character I might be thinking of? It’s really bugging me.

[@xavier113]

I like what I heard. Thanks Chris 🙂

[@peytonparabdeen2413]

You literally sound like Chris Cornell more than any other singer

[@bonerici]

Chris I have a question. How is singing different from the piano or guitar. On both of those instruments I find scales very useful and they help me tremendously on my instrument. For instance on the guitar it gives me the confidence to play all the way up and down the neck because my fingers have learned the patterns while on the piano the fingers need to know all the scales. It's not enough to just be able to play in Bb or C. How is the voice different? Thanks.

[@ramspencer5492]

You didn't watch the video.... He didn't say don't do scales at all... That's exactly what he did.... It was about the approach.

[@chrisliepe]

GREAT question! The main reason that the voice needs to be treated differently is because there is a 'competitive' thing that happens between the body and mind when practicing scales if done like I demonstrate as what not to do at the beginning of this video. We are trying to hit the right pitches with the right tone all while dealing with an instrument that is inside our body that we can't see, so developing muscle memory (unlike with guitar where you CAN see it) is completely dependent on how your voice and muscles/tissues FEEL while you're singing. Especially when warming up, using timed or fast scales will cause you to compete with yourself instead of experiencing where your voice is at in the moment and then working with the sensations that you feel. You need to build in the bandwidth to be mindful and introspective with every note or phrase you sing. It's possible, but much more difficult to do with the voice/scale exercise combination the way it's traditionally done. I've played guitar for decades and do lots of scale exercises there, and they do work to some extent... BUT even there... Being able to play a scale well, doesn't really translate into tasty licks or good songs. It just leads to more scales... Even if my technique is getting better. Let's be musical and experiential and emotionally connected from the beginning!!

[@bonerici]

@@chrisliepe thanks for the depth in the reply. It's definitely different. I agree the scales don't create the tasty licks but they make it so much easier because the mechanical part of moving the fingers up and down, hitting the frets, fingering all that stuff you get from stupid scales. I've watched buckethead on video do his "spider-finger" scales, not exactly sure what he calls them, and they are a finger twister and Yngwie do his baroque minor scales. If you can master those scales they will help you a lot. The voice is such a different instrument, I didn't really think about why you should do scales differently on your voice from a guitar until I saw your video today

[@cochonoob]

Just to add something not already said: singing is different from piano or guitar because it's more like a Cello: it's a fretless instrument. You can't rely as much on visual patterns to compensate your lack of ear.

[@alarson1799]

​@@bonerici Something else that can help you with warmups is simply mixing up the patterns. Instead of 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1, you can do arpeggios, you can mix in different leaps and rhythms (hold some notes, make others a little shorter), sing a section from a song with or without words, or just make up your own pattern. This is much like what Chris was doing in this video, but he was intentionally letting himself do whatever he felt rather than planning it out in order to focus on staying relaxed and free. Scales and other regimented warmups serve much the same purpose for the voice as you described for the guitar: you learn pitch accuracy and rhythmic accuracy. I think the thing Chris is getting at here is that if you mindlessly run through scales, you're not only ignoring what your body is telling you but reinforcing bad habits, especially with the voice. Mindless repetition is a recipe for tension, and tension will ruin your sound and eventually your voice. As long as you stay relaxed and focus on resonance and support, the pattern itself doesn't really matter. That's why Chris' exercises in this video are good, not because of the notes themselves but because he's allowing his voice to work in a relaxed and, therefore, efficient way and to discover what he can do with his instrument.

[@noisyverset]

Nice! Thank you 🙂

[@CarlosAMartinezH]

Very cool!! I used to do this a lot for mantra chanting!! What is a good note to practice with women and men at the same time?

[@erank3]

Great advise I think combing both scales and focusing on a single note is a great workout. I tend to lose rhythm/voice dynamic when I sit on a note, any tips?

[@unholyduck3316]

Your way of doing scales feels like listening to Muse :D

[@theophany1770]

You da man!

[@chrisliepe]

Thank you!

[@willian2261]

Chris can you make toturial about how to sing november rain by gnr

[@mjmbono]

Came for scale hate ... but stayed for the scale love

[@kerriebouchard8658]

Chris , how do I get that background drone sound ????? I need it

[@chrisliepe]

You can just play any old synth/string sound on GarageBand or a keyboard and then just loop it :)

[@chrisliepe]

I also feature them in my courses :)

[@nope238]

08:09 -its look kinda weird,but thats more helps than all videos on youtube,take care

[@ELALEYSUSCANCIONES]

beauty way to warm up, how do you work on your intonation?

[@trudytriad4574]

Nah, on another "note", you're hilarious 🤣🤣

[@primeribtard9590]

I've always hated this because every single voice is different, so how do you expect the same exact exercise to work all the time? If you keep forcing the stick through the small hole, you'll just break the stick, no get it in.

[@ryanvalen2774]

Chris what kind of app are you using here, or any recommendations?

[@kerriebouchard8658]

Or can anyone help me ? I have never gotten a response from a real live you tube star ☹️

[@chrisliepe]

Hey Kerrie!! :)

[@beehype46and2]

Comment for da algorithm Streak count: 183

[@chrisliepe]

:)

[@maurofereira2521]

Nice references🤣🤑🤑

[@xusun956]

Finally, you have joined other youtubers in the army of DONT BUY THIS. THIS IS WRONG. WHY I REGRET. I WISH I KNEW

[@VaVaBanks28]

Oooooo the God christ liepe has spoken..! Listen other youtubers 👀 lol

[@chrisliepe]

hehe :)

[@theredpill321]

la la la 😝😆😝😆😆

[@evananderson4299]

Chris’s the best