We speak of the breath of life; and breath is the life of song. Beautiful singing is predicated upon correct methods of breathing, without which, though there be a perfect larynx and perfectly formed resonance chambers above, the result will be unsatisfactory. Breathing, in fact, is the foundation of the art of singing.
Breathing consists of taking air into the lungs and expelling it again, or as the physiologist would say, respiration consists of inspiration and expiration. Although they are essentially different actions, the laws governing each frequently have been confused by teachers of voice-culture.
There are books in which the singer is told to breathe naturally, and this direction is harped on and extolled for its simplicity. Surely no rule could be more simple; and, so far as simplicity goes, it is admirable. So far also as it casts doubt upon various breathing-methods which teachers of singing put forth as their own individual and pet devices, without which, they claim, aspirants for the
concert and operatic stage would be hopelessly lost, this direction serves a useful purpose. The trouble with it is, however, that it is too simple. It does not go far enough. It leaves too much to the individual. For obviously there will be, if not as many, certainly nearly as many opinions among as many different people as to what constitutes natural breathing; and a person may have become so habituated to a faulty method of breathing that he believes it natural, although it is not.
Correct breathing, although a function of the body, also is an art. The method of a singer to be correct should be based on artistic, not merely on natural, breathing. For while all artistic breathing is natural, it does not follow that all natural breathing is artistic. Therefore, the first direction to a singer should be, breathe artistically, with some definition of what constitutes artistic breathing.
Could the singer be relied on to breathe as naturally and unconsciously as in normal slumber, when the body is in a state of calm, nearly everything that has been written on the art of singing could be dispensed with. That, practically, is what the direction to breathe naturally amounts to. For such breathing is both natural and artistic. Unfortunately,
however, a singer is not a somnambulist, and when he faces his teacher, or a large audience, he not only is not in that deliciously unconscious state induced by normal slumber, but he is very much awake, with the added tension caused by nervousness and excitement. He is conscious, self-conscious in the artistic sense, unless he has been trained to appear otherwise. For, in the final analysis, that lack of self-consciousness, that ease and spontaneity which we associate with the highest art, is, save in the case of a few superlatively gifted individuals, the result of method and training. Therefore, the direction to breathe naturally is begging the question. It states a result, without explaining how it is to be acquired. Once acquired, method is merged into habit and habit into seeming instinct—that is to say, it becomes method, responding so spontaneously to the slightest suggestion of the will, that only the perfected result of it is apparent to the listener. Under such favorable conditions created by a correct method of instruction, the nervousness inseparable from a début, and in many singers never wholly overcome even after frequent public appearances, is disguised by an assumption of calm, into which the poise and aspect of a trained singer naturally fall. All this is
much facilitated by the fundamental acquisition of correct breathing.
This correct breathing, which is the artistic respiration of the accomplished singer, is based upon physiological laws which can be described, prescribed and practised. When Salvatore Marchesi, the husband of Mathilde Marchesi, and himself a famous singer, said that prepared or instructed mechanical effort to get more breath results in less, he said what is true only if the instruction is wrong. His dictum, if accepted unreservedly, would leave the door open to all kinds of "natural," haphazard and go-as-you-please methods of breathing, the "simplicity" of which consists in simply being incorrect. The physiology of breathing is an exact science, and the singer who is taught its laws and obeys them, will acquire in due time the habit of artistic respiration. It is that breathing that is as natural and unconscious as in normal slumber, so natural in fact that it has to be acquired through correct instruction, because most men and women are unnatural or have taken on habits that are unnatural.
Taking in the breath, the function of inspiration, results in a readjustment of certain organs which become disadjusted by the act of expiration or