Practice humming exercises. The goal is to raise or lower the pitch. Begin by saying "hmm" and allow the pitch to move upward until you feel the humming vibration in your nose and eyes. The second version of the exercise focuses on lowering the pitch until the humming vibration is felt in the chest. Practice humming different notes of a scale with the technique.
Practice deep breathing exercises. Proper singing involves breath control and strong vocal cords. Place your hands on your diaphragm. Take a deep breath, hold it for a few seconds, and then release the breath. Concentrate on feeling the diaphragm move while inhaling and exhaling.
Concentrate on lip trills and exercises. Lip trills are a good way to practice breathing technique and loosen up the vocal cords without placing stress on them. Put your lips together, imagining that you are swimming or submerged in water. Keep your lips together as you exhale through your mouth. This should cause your lips to vibrate, making a trilling sound. Repeat the exercise several times.
Warm up with scale exercises and intervals. Singing scales and intervals strengthens the vocal cords, contributes to proper breathing technique and helps to develop pitch. Sing the notes of a scale, such as C major, using a piano or other musical instrument as a reference point. The C-major scale is C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C. Sing the scale from the low C to the high C and also practice singing intervals in the scale, such as C-E, C-G, E-G and so forth.