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Updated: May 10, 2025
The correct method of breathing involves only what may be called the breathing-muscles, but it utilizes all of these, thus insuring complete and effectual action; whereas clavicular breathing secures only a partial coöperation of these muscles, and in the effort involved in raising the clavicle and shoulder-blades actually is obliged to call on muscles that simply are employed to lift the weight of the body, have nothing whatever to do with breathing and, from their position, are a hindrance rather than an aid to chest-expansion.
In the method of breathing called clavicular, the hoisting of the shoulder-blades is an upward perpendicular effort which is both ugly to look at and disagreeable in its results. For in art no effort, as such, should be perceptible. Moreover, as in all errors of method in voice-teaching, there is a precise physiological reason why clavicular breathing is incorrect.
Correct breathing results, with each intake of breath, in as great an enlargement of the chest-cavity as is necessary to make room for the expansion of the lungs when inflated. But as clavicular breathing acts only on the upper ribs, it causes only the upper part of the chest to expand, and so actually circumscribes the space within which and the extent to which the lungs can be inflated.
In this method, although it is a combination of the three the clavicular, the diaphragmatic and the costal the clavicle plays so small a part, that the method may be termed mixed costal and diaphragmatic. The breath having been taken in, it should be held for a brief space of time. In expiration, allow the breath to escape very slowly.
It is likely that teachers have insisted on diaphragmatic breathing, especially in the case of females, because, unfortunately, prevalent modes of dress so restrict the lower chest, etc., that individuals instinctively seek relief in upper chest or clavicular breathing, in which case it may be observed that the actual breath power of the singer is very small.
For example, a tenor in reaching for a high note may find that the violent raising of the collarbone and shoulder-blades, which is involved in clavicular breathing, assists him at the critical moment, and he may, rightfully, perhaps, employ that method in that one great effort of an evening remembering, however, that Rubini actually broke his collarbone in delivering a very high note.
A more nearly correct method of breathing is the costal that is by expansion and contraction of the ribs. It enlarges the chest cavity more than does either the clavicular or the diaphragmatic method; but does not enlarge it to its full capacity. Each method by itself alone, therefore, falls short of the complete result desired.
In cases of long standing it is not so simple, because other muscles, the spinati, the clavicular fibres of the pectoral and the serratus, take its place and elevate the arm; there is always loss of sensation on the lateral aspect of the shoulder. There is rarely any call for operative treatment, as the paralysis is usually compensated for by other muscles.
In fact, clavicular, or high breathing, requires a great effort to supply only a small amount of air; and this not only necessitates a frequent repetition of an unsightly effort, but, in consequence, weakens the singer's control over his voice-mechanism, makes inspiration through the nostrils awkward and, when the air has to be renewed quickly, even impossible, obliging the singer to breathe in violently, pantingly, and with other disagreeable and distressing symptoms of effort, through the mouth.
We will give a general idea of the first three methods, and a more extended treatment of the fourth method, upon which the Yogi Science of Breath is largely based. This form of breathing is known to the Western world as Clavicular Breathing, or Collarbone Breathing.
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