Video transcript
Warm-ups for your choir (primary) - eClass 1 - Body and breath - 1. Preparing the body

RACHEL KELLY: Starting your rehearsal with some kind of physical warm-up will focus and energise your choir as well as help with the muscles that support breathing and posture. Singing isn't isolated to just one part of the body. The whole body is engaged when we sing. So we want it to be loose and relaxed, ready to support the sound and the emotion of the music.

The first thing we're going to do is a bit of getting our body ready. So I want you all to stand.

OK. We're going to start by having a big stretch above your heads. Up on your toes. Arms up in the air, and now shake your arms out, and now let's do a really big yawn and a stretch.

ALL: (yawning) Aah.

RACHEL KELLY: Oh, I think you can do a louder yawn than that. Try it again.

ALL: (yawning) Aah.

RACHEL KELLY: Excellent, and now we're going to roll our shoulders slowly backwards, and as you do this, think about where your feet are. Make sure that they're comfortably apart, around about in line with your shoulders. So you feel nice and balanced. And forwards.

Terrific, and then stand with arms by your sides, nice and relaxed.

So we're going to start by warming up our body, and the way we're going to do it today is by making little circles, first of all with one ankle. So you're just going to turn a foot around in slow circles, then go back the other way. That's it. And then we're going to make the circles from our knee. So start small, then get bigger from your knee. So above your knee, stay still.

And now we want to try and make the circle from our hips, so with our whole leg. Let's see it. Well done. Put that foot down, do the other leg. So we start with the ankle. One way. Try the other way. That's it. Now from the knee. That's it. You can try either direction.

And now from the hip. Nice and slow, and the other way. Well done. Give your legs a bit of a shake. That's it. Now feet apart again.

Now we're going to do it with our arms, and for this, you're going to go side on, so you don't whack anybody in the head. So, arms out, and we're going forwards first. We'll make small circles. Slowly. Getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and we're swimming the butterfly. That's the way. Give your arms a shake, and let's try it backwards. Small circles first.

And bigger.

Bigger.

And reverse butterfly. Shake your arms, face the front, arms by sides.

So we're going to start off by holding an imaginary pencil in our hand, and I want you to draw a beautiful big flower on the ceiling above you without looking. Go.

Big. I said big.

Give it a stem and little leaf. Beautiful. Arm down. Now with your other arm, take your imaginary pencil. Without looking, I want you to draw the biggest elephant you've ever drawn. Go.

Oh! You can bend, you can move. Make it big. Let's see it. Give it a trunk.

Excellent, and arms down. Now I would like you to put your imaginary pencil on the top of your head. Just balance it there, or maybe there's this little imaginary strap that it sits in. OK. Now with this imaginary pencil on your head, I want you to try drawing a cat. Don't forget the whiskers.

Well done.

Let's draw one more thing, and I'm going to let one of you choose what it is that we draw. Let me see-- Emily, what do you think?

EMILY: I think a dog.

RACHEL KELLY: A dog? I think I can manage that. I'll give it a try. I'm not quite sure what kind of dog it will be. Here we go, draw any kind of dog you want. Go.

And stop. Excellent. Balance. Facing me. So we've just given our body a little bit of a bend and stretch in various directions. As we've done our imaginary drawing, let's have a look at the ceiling. What a mess.

This is one that gets our body ready for singing. Gets the blood pumping and gets us energised. So I'm going to show you a number on my hand. Some of you have done this before. If I hold up one finger, it means you walk on the spot. So let's practise that.

[feet walking]

And no fingers means stop. That's it. If I hold up 2 fingers, that means you jog on the spot.

[feet jogging]

[feet walking]

Got to watch. There's a very delayed reaction from some people. You got to watch the hand the whole time.

[feet jogging]

Much better. Three fingers means run as fast as you can on the spot. So try that one.

[feet running]

[feet jogging]

[feet walking]

[feet running]

[feet running]

Well done.