renewed quickly, even
impossible, obliging the singer to breathe in violently, pantingly, and
with other disagreeable and distressing symptoms of effort, through the
mouth. 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 cooperation 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.

A better name for the method of breathing that is called "abdominal"
would be abominable. It is predicated upon an exaggerated idea of the
force of the action required of the diaphragm, or midriff, the large
dome-shaped muscle which separates the thoracic from the abdominal
cavity, in other words, the cavity of the chest from the cavity of the
stomach. It is true that some animals can get all the breath they
require to maintain life by the action of the diaphragm alone, yet it
is a mistake to predicate breathing, and especially inspiration, upon a
more or less violent action of the diaphragm and the abdominal muscles.
Both diaphragm and the abdominal muscles are, indeed, used in breathing,
but not to the forcible extent that would justify applying the term
"diaphragmatic" or "abdominal" to the correct method of respiration.

The abdominal style of breathing was advocated by the physiologist
Mandl, and it is said that soon afterward in the schools of singing
which followed his theory most unusual devices were practised for the
purpose of keeping the ribs in a fixed position and compelling the pupil
to breathe by the action of the diaphragm and abdominal muscles only.
Thus, the pupil was compelled to sing while lying down on a mattress,
sometimes with weights placed on his chest. In fact, masters are said
even to have made a practice of seating themselves upon the chests of
their pupils. Gallows, with thongs and rings for binding the upper half
of the body and keeping it rigid, corsets and a pillory, which enclosed
the frame and held the ribs in a fixed position, were some of the
apparatus used in teaching the art of singing based upon abdominal
breathing.

I have characterized clavicular breathing as an upward perpendicul