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Updated: May 7, 2025
Most important of these exercises is a quick inspiration, followed by a slow and controlled expiration. Exercises for breathing and breath-control are usually combined; the student is instructed to take breath in the manner advocated by the teacher, and then to control the expiration.
If the reader is familiar with my last two works, "Vocal Reinforcement" and "Position and Action in Singing," he will have learned through them that we have not direct, correct control of the form and adjustment of the parts which secure the true conditions of tone and automatic breath-control.
Theoretical writers generally do not claim that the control of the breath brings about the correct laryngeal action, but merely that it permits this action by noninterference. Several authorities however, notably Shakespeare, maintain that in effect this system of breath-control embodies the old precept, "Sing on the breath." Th. The "Breath-band" System
Another law of mechanics bearing on this operation is now to be considered, viz., the law of the transformation and conservation of energy. To perform this test the singer is instructed to practise the exercises for breath-control while holding a lighted candle with the flame an inch or two in front of the lips.
When critically examined, and submitted to a rigid scientific analysis, several of these doctrines are found to be erroneous in conception. These are the theories of breath-control, chest resonance, nasal resonance, and emission of tone. It will be observed that these doctrines comprise more than half of the materials of the accepted Vocal Science.
It is because we do not to-day pursue right methods for a sufficient length of time; because our methods rest frequently on a foundation less physiological, and therefore less sound. Take a single instance, breath-control.
The most influential published work in popularizing the doctrine of breath-control was probably the book written jointly by Lennox Browne and Emil Behnke, Voice, Song, and Speech, London, 1883. This doctrine is of so much importance in Vocal Science and in modern methods of instruction as to require a detailed explanation. The theory of breath-control may be stated as follows:
Only the preconceived notion of breath-control leads to this inference. The sympathetic sensations indicate a state of extreme muscular tension of the throat; this is about the only possible analysis of the condition. Empirical impressions of vocal tones determine the character of most present-day instruction in singing.
So far as the effect of the expiratory blast on the vocal cords is concerned, "controlling" the breath has no influence whatever. The vocal cords respond to the effective air pressure; they are not affected in any way by the opposed contractions of the breath muscles. "Opposed-muscular" breath-control is a sheer waste of time and effort.
Both systems of breath-control cannot be right; if one is correct, the other must necessarily be absolutely wrong. Instead of attempting to decide between them, it will be seen that both are false, and that the theory on which they rest is erroneous. This discussion is reserved for a later chapter.
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