after life.

Chest and shoulder heaving are vicious and evidence impeded breathing. The singer who, forgetting the lower thorax, breathes with the upper only is sure to fail. Therefore breathe from the lower part of the trunk, using the whole muscular system coördinately—from below upward. In other words breathe deeply, and control deeply, but with the whole body—from below, not with the upper chest only, or with lateral expansion only, or abdominal expansion only.

Every teacher and pupil should remember that "singing and speaking require wind and muscle," hence the breathing power must be fully developed. Weak breathing and failure to properly focus the voice are the most frequent causes of singing off the key. They are much more common and mischievous than lack of "ear."

Dr. May tested the breathing of 85 persons, most of them Indians, and found that 79 out of the 85 used abdominal breathing. The chest breathers were from classes "civilized" and more or less "cultured."

Nature has provided that for quiet breathing when at rest the air shall pass through the nose. But when a person is taking active exercise, and consequently demands more air, he naturally and of necessity opens the mouth so as to breathe more fully. While speaking or singing the air is necessarily taken in through the mouth.

BREATH CONTROL

Firmness of tone depends upon steadiness of breath pressure. Steadiness of tone depends upon a control of the breath which allows a minimum volume of air to pass out under sufficient tension to produce vocalization.

The tension and flow of breath can be gradually lessened until the tone vanishes and not even a whisper remains.

Power and largeness of tone depend first upon the right use of the resonant cavities, and second upon the volume of breath used under proper control.

In producing high tones the breath is delivered in less amount than for the low tones, but under greater tension. Absolute control of the breath is necessary to produce the best results of which a voice is capable. Full control of the breath insures success to a good voice; without it the best voice is doomed to failure.

When muscular action is fully mastered, and the proper method of breathing understood and established, the muscles of inspiration and expiration will act one against the other, so that the act of breathing may be suspended at any moment, whether the lungs are full, or partly full, or empty. This is muscular control of the breath. Correct breathing is health giving and strength giving; it promotes nutrition, lessens the amount of adipose tissue, and reinforces every physical requisite essential to speaking and singing.

A CURE FOR NERVOUSNESS

It cannot be too widely advertised that the surest remedy for that torture of singers and speakers, nervousness, is the great tranquillizer,—quiet, deep breathing, deeply controlled. The breath of nervousness is quick, irregular, and shallow, therefore, take a few, slow, deliberate, deep, and rhythmic inhalations of pure air through the nostrils, and the panting gasp of agitation will vanish. As a help toward deepening the breath and overcoming the spasmodic, clavicular habit, inhale quietly and slowly through the nose, or slowly sip the air through the nearly closed lips as if you were sipping the inmost breath of life itself.

NECESSITY OF BREATHING EXERCISES

To acquire control of breathing, proper exercises must be intelligently and persistently followed. In mankind, nature seems to have been diverted from her normal course so that we seldom find an individual who breathes correctly without education in the matter. What we have said on breathing is based on the premise that respiration involves coördinate action of the body from collar-bone to the base of the abdomen; that is, expanding and contracting the chest and abdomen simultaneously. This is called "lateral-abdominal" breathing; as the chest is the thoracic cavity, "abdomino-thoracic" has been suggested as brief and more strictly scientific.

Work on any other lines fails to develop the full power and quality of the voice. Weak breathing is a prime cause of throaty tones. In such cases an effort is made to increase the tone by pinching the larynx. But this compresses the vocal cords, increases the resistance to the passage of the breath, and brings rigidities that prevent proper resonance. The true way is to increase the wind supply, as does the organist.

CORRECT BREATHING ILLUSTRATED

The following figures show the outline of correct breathing. The inner abdominal line shows the limit of expiration; the outer line shows the limit of full inspiration.

Figure 9 shows the limit of full expiration and inspiration of the male, side view.

Figure 9.

Figure 10 shows the lateral expansion of the ribs in both expiration and inspiration, front view of the male.

Figure 10.

The expansion cannot be great at this part of the chest, as the side is so short a distance from the backbone to which the ribs are attached. The movement of the ribs in front is much greater, as Fig. 9 shows.

Figure 11 shows the front expansion and contraction in the breathing of the female, side view.

Figure 11.

Figure 12 shows the lateral expansion of the chest in the female, front view.

Figure 12.

These diagrams are made from photographs, and thus true to life. It will be noticed that there is no difference in the breathing outline between these subjects. The female subject, though a good singer, had had no training in breathing. She previously insisted that she used only the chest breathing, and did not use the abdominal muscles, but actual test revealed the condition to be that shown in Figure 11 and convinced her that she was mistaken.

It is not unlikely that many other singers who now think they are using only the high chest respiration would, if subjected to the same test, find themselves similarly mistaken.

The contraction incident to forced expiration is much more tense than the enlargement of forced inspiration. When singing or speaking, forced inspiration is not used. Experience shows that the change in size of the body during speaking or singing is usually small. Occasionally, long passages in music demand that the expulsive power of the breathing apparatus be used to its limit.

ECONOMY OF BREATH

The quantity of air taken in with a single inspiration is, in quiet breathing, according to Prof. Mills,