this most important subject. The lungs, as we have seen, are the bellows of our vocal organ; they supply the air which is the motive power on which the voice depends. Without air no tone can be produced. Nay, more, life itself must cease without it. Breathing goes on regularly while the voice is silent; but in speaking and singing both inspiration and expiration have to be regulated according to the nature of the phrases to be spoken or sung. If the speaker does not know how to take breath and how to control the expiration, his delivery will of necessity be jerky and uncertain. But in the singer it is even more important that he should be able to fill his lungs well, and, having done this, to have absolute command over his expiration; because while the speaker can arrange his sentences, his speed, and his breathing-places very much at his own pleasure, the singer is bound by the music before him. It must, therefore, be his aim to cultivate a proper method of breathing with the object of first getting, with the least possible fatigue, the largest possible amount of air in the most scrupulously careful manner, so as to prevent even the smallest fraction of it from being wasted. Yet how seldom is breathing systematically practised as an indispensable preliminary to the production of tone! I have no hesitation in saying that the subject is, in many instances, dismissed with a few general observations. Pupils, of course, take breath somehow, and teachers are glad to leave this uninteresting part of the business, and to proceed to the cultivation of the voice.
It may be as well to add that what has been said so far about right and wrong methods of breathing is not by any means mere theory, but that any one can convince himself of the truth of the rules laid down by making a few experiments with the spirometer, an instrument for measuring the breathing power of the chest by indicating on a dial the exact number of cubic inches of air expelled from the lungs. This breathing power will be found to vary according to the way in which the inspiration has been accomplished. In my own case, for instance, the spirometer should register, according to the table of comparative height and breathing power compiled by John Hutchinson, 230 cubic inches. Having suffered from severe attacks of bleeding from the lungs, my maximum with midriff and rib breathing is only 220, but with collar-bone breathing I barely reach 180!
During the Summer Session of the Tonic Sol-fa College I carefully tested the breathing capacity of ten students, and found that there was an average excess of midriff and rib breathing over collar-bone breathing to the extent of 25 cubic inches: the least amount of their increased power was 12 cubic inches, and the greatest was 45! I imagine that these figures are more eloquent than any words, and I think it superfluous to make any further comment on them.
I am strongly of opinion that breathing exercises, especially in the case of intending public singers, should always be carried on with a spirometer,[D] because that instrument enables us with the greatest accuracy to check results which otherwise can only be guessed at.
If this suggestion were acted upon we should certainly no longer be distressed by that intolerable and never-ceasing tremolo which now so frequently mars many, in other respects, fine voices. It is a curious, and at first sight unaccountable, circumstance that this great fault is specially noticeable amongst French singers. But at the Conservatoire de Musique in Paris students are deliberately taught the wrong method of inspiration; for, as we gather from the "Méthode de Chant du Conservatoire de Musique," they are told to "flatten [or draw in] the abdomen" and to "bulge out the chest." Thus the mystery is at once cleared up, because the tremolo arises almost invariably from a weakness of the muscles of the midriff or diaphragm, to which attention has already been called in these pages. Owing to the abdomen being drawn in, the midriff never properly contracts; the muscles are not sufficiently exercised, and consequently have not power enough to resist the pressure that is brought to bear upon them in singing. They tremble, and this trembling being communicated to the lungs, which are resting upon them, the stream of air they give forth, loses its evenness and continuity, with the result I have just stated. It will be seen from the above explanation that this tremolo, one of the greatest vices besetting modern singing, and which has hitherto been held by many to be incurable, may be got rid of completely, though perhaps not very quickly, by the simple remedy of lung gymnastics on the right principle. The tremolo may certainly also arise from weakness of some muscles in the voicebox or larynx, by which the tension of the vocal ligaments is diminished and increased in rapid alternation. But this is a case for a medical man, which does not fall within my province to discuss, though I am justified in saying, on the authority of Mr. Lennox Browne,[E] that even in many of these cases the effect is clearly attributable to faulty breathing, since there is seldom any local disease of the larynx; while exercise on a right method of breathing will cure the spasmodic action of the laryngeal muscles with but little or no medical treatment.
I need scarcely add that there is yet another kind of tremolo, which, being absolutely under the control of the performer, is one of the chief ornaments of song, and to which the observations just made in no way apply.
In addition to the involuntary tremolo there are a number of other afflictions, "Clergymen's sore throat" amongst them, which are admitted by eminent medical authorities to be due to collar-bone breathing, and which may be entirely cured by proper lung gymnastics, or, in other words, by breathing exercises on the right principle; that is to say, by calling into play the muscles of the abdomen and of the lower part of the chest. This is a subject which is little understood by singers and public speakers, many of whom would be amazed at the sometimes most wonderful results produced by such simple means. I will therefore quote a case in point which came under my notice quite recently, and which will give the reader an idea of the importance of proper breathing:
Mr. X, a tall thin young man, engaged in evangelistic work, suffered from a "weakness of voice," which he found a great hindrance to his success. He therefore consulted Mr. Lennox Browne, who at once told him that he had no disease of any kind, and sent him to me for a course of breathing exercises. I found that Mr. X chiefly spoke in a child's voice, over which, moreover, he had very little control; and when I requested him to take a deep inspiration, he drew in his abdomen, bulged out his chest, and raised his collar-bones. The spirometer only registered 200 cubic inches instead of 260, which, according to Hutchinson's table, was his mean.
My course was, therefore, plain. I made him stand in an easy natural position, neither allowing him to bulge out his chest, nor to draw in the abdomen, and then instructed him how to acquire some control over his midriff and the lower muscles of the chest. It may be observed here, in passing, that we can, in a state of health, contract and relax these muscles at will, just as easily as we can bend a finger, and that this power, when lost through disuse, can be regained with little difficulty. In Mr. X's case this process was particularly speedy, with the result of increasing his breathing power in two lessons by 60 cubic inches. In one additional week I could dismiss him with a full sonorous man's voice, in place of the uncertain child's squeak with which he came to me. It is no exaggeration to say that this young man left me with a new voice, and if people had heard him when he first came to me, behind a screen, and again after the last lesson, they would certainly not have believed that they were listening to the same person. What Mr. X and his friends think of his case may be seen from the following letter which he wrote me on July 6th, 1880:—"Now that a week has passed since the last lesson I had from you, I write to bear testimony to the wonderful benefit to my voice obtained through the very short course I took. My friends are quite astonished at the marked difference, and I beg you will accept my most sincere thanks," &c.
Many similar cases might be mentioned, but the one just quoted is sufficient, and I will sum the matter up with a few remarks which Mr. Lennox Browne made as chairman at my lecture at the Aldersgate Street Literary Institution, on October 9th, 1880. He then said that, in his medical experience, he found that persons who suffered from their voices generally owed their ailments to bad habits of using the voice, and not to any defect in the larynx or resonance chamber. In several cases lately he had sent such patients to Herr Behnke, who had given them lessons in correct breathing, and who had thereby, and without any medicine, galvanism, or other aid, restored their voices in a remarkably short time.
From what has been said above about midriff and rib breathing versus collar-bone breathing, the folly of tight-lacing, or, indeed, of in any way interfering with the freedom of the waist, will be at once apparent. We pride ourselves upon our civilization; we make a boast of living in the age of science; physiology is now taught, or at least talked