s after a while a fixed habit and is performed
unconsciously. In the early days of practice the pupil may be apt
consciously to perform each of the successive acts comprised in artistic
breathing. Gradually, however, messages begin to travel so swiftly over
the nerves which connect the will, mind, or artistic sense with the
breathing-muscles that these seem to have become sensitive by
anticipation to what is required of them and voluntarily to bring
themselves into play. The most subtle filament ever spun still is less
fine than the line which divides the physiology of voice-production from
the psychology of song and, by crossing which, song, the art of Nature,
becomes second nature.

The singer having after inspiration retained the air in his lungs for
a brief space of time, also must maintain control of the stream of air
when he begins to emit it. It should rise from the lungs through the
bronchial tubes, the windpipe and the larynx into the mouth and flow
out from between the lips like a river between smooth and even banks
and bearing voice upon its current--a stream of melody. The more slowly,
within reason, the singer allows his breath to flow out, the better; and
this is as true of rapid phrases as of broad _cantabile_. Breath should
be emitted as slowly in a long, rapid phrase as in a slow phrase of the
same length. It is only when rapid phrases succeed each other so quickly
that there is no time between them for a deliberate, full inspiration,
that half-breaths have to be taken to replenish the air-supply. But
a singer who thinks that rapid singing also involves rapid breathing
should rid himself of that mistaken notion as quickly as possible. A
choirmaster once told me that he had trained his boys so perfectly in
breath-control that they could sustain a note for thirty seconds on one
breath. For them to sing on one breath a rapid phrase lasting just as
long, would be equally feasible. It is the slow emission of breath that
gives to long, rapid phrases a smooth and limpid quality; and it is the
taking of breath at inopportune moments, as badly taught singers are
obliged to do, that makes such phrases choppy and ineffectual. This
fault is never observable in artists trained in the real traditional
Italian school of singing--not necessarily by Italians, but in the
traditional school of the old Italian masters.

The choppy method of singing is noticeable, not in all, but in many
German singers. It is due to incomp