disconcertive

Updated: May 26, 2025

This habit, this smooth working, automatic coöperation of nerves with breathing-muscles, may be thrown out of gear by something unusual, such as the excitement attending a début. The singer faces an audience or a strange audience for the first time, and the first unfavorable and disconcertive effect travels over the nerves to the respiratory organs.

Frank E. Miller - The Voice: Its Production, Care and Preservation