ath exhaustion is _wasted_ breath. This waste
comes from exhaling more breath (more motive power) than the tone
requires, and _breath that does not become tone is wasted_. This fault
is largely induced by lack of proper resonance adjustment.

The singer should always feel able to sing another note or to speak
another word. To sing or speak thirty or forty counts with one breath
is useful practice but poor performance. Occasionally, long runs in
singing may compel an exception. Half-empty lungs lower the pitch of
the tone, lessen the resonance, and weaken the voice, rendering the
last note of the song and the last word of the sentence inaudible. The
breathing must not be forced, but enough air must be furnished to
produce the proper full vibrations.

BREATH MASTERY

What then does perfect control of the breath mean?

1. Ability to fill the lungs to their capacity either quickly or
slowly.

2. Ability to breathe out as quickly or slowly as the occasion
demands.

3. Ability to suspend inspiration, with the throat open, whether the
lungs are full or not, and to resume the process at will without
having lost any of the already inspired air.

4. Ability to exhale under the same restrictions.

The above four points are common to speaking and singing, but singing
involves further:

5. Ability to sing and sustain the voice on an _ordinary_ breath.

6. Ability to _quietly_ breathe as often as text and phrase permit.

7. Ability to breathe so that the fullest inspiration _brings no
fatigue_.

8. Ability to so economize the breath that the _reserve is never
exhausted_.

9. The ability to breathe so naturally, so unobtrusively, that
_neither breath nor lack of breath is ever suggested to the
listener_--this is the very perfection of the art.

CHAPTER IV

BREATHING EXERCISES

Enough has been said in the preceding chapter to make clear the
necessity of breath control, and to show what constitutes this control
for the singer--the professional breather.

If the singer's breathing is nothing but an amplification of normal,
healthy breathing, why dwell upon it, why not let it develop of
itself?

Unfortunately, many teachers have taken this attitude, overlooking the
fact that, although life is dependent on normal, healthy breathing,
such breathing is, in civilized communities, not the rule but the
exception, simply because normal living is rare; the artificiality of
modern life forbids it. The high press