hing can easily be adopted, and the student of singing seldom
encounters any difficulty on this point. Still most teachers attach
great importance to the acquirement of the correct manner of breathing.
Toneless mechanical exercises are generally given, by which the student
is expected to master the muscular movements before applying in singing
the system advocated by the teacher. These exercises are usually
combined with those for breath-control, and they are described under
that head.

_Breath-Control_

Very early in the development of Vocal Science the management of the
breath began to receive attention. Mannstein,[2] writing in 1834, says:
"The air in expiration must stream from the chest slowly and without
shock. The air must flow from the chest with the tone." In a footnote he
adds: "In order to acquire this economy of the breath, students were
required to practise daily, without singing, to take and to hold back
the breath as long as possible." Mannstein does not mention the muscular
action involved in this exercise.

[Note 2: _Die grosse italienische Gesangschule._ Dresden, 1834.]

This subject is also touched upon by Garcia. In the first edition of his
_Ecole de Garcia_, 1847, Chap. IV, p. 14, he says: "The mechanism of
expiration consists of a gentle pressure on the lungs charged with air,
operated by the thorax and the diaphragm. The shock of the chest, the
sudden falling of the ribs, and the quick relaxing of the diaphragm
cause the air to escape instantly.... If, while the lungs are filled
with air, the ribs are allowed to fall, and the diaphragm to rise, the
lungs instantly give up the inspired air, like a pressed sponge. It is
necessary therefore to allow the ribs to fall and the diaphragm to relax
only so much as is required to sustain the tones." It may be questioned
whether Garcia had in mind the doctrine of breath-control as this is
understood to-day. Very little attention was paid, at any rate, in the
vocal instruction of that day, to the mechanical actions of
breath-control; the great majority of teachers probably had never heard
of this principle.

As a definite principle of Vocal Science, breath-control was first
formulated by Dr. Mandl, in his _Die Gesundheitslehre der Stimme_,
Brunswick, 1876. From that time on, this doctrine has been very
generally recognized as the fundamental principle of correct singing.
Practically every scientific writer on the voice since then states
breath-control a