I should be sorry if what I have said regarding the diaphragm were to be construed as belittling its
importance as an aid to artistic breathing. My comments are directed against the exaggerated importance attached to it by advocates of wholly diaphragmatic or abdominal breathing, when it is capable of physiological demonstration that violent effort will accomplish no more with the diaphragm than that accommodating muscle accomplishes of its own accord when the singer, in taking in breath, correctly applies the principles of mixed costal and diaphragmatic respiration. In women only one-fifth and in men only one-sixth of the cavity needed for the inflation of the lungs can be made by sinking the diaphragm, the remaining four-fifths and five-sixths being created by the expansion of the ribs. Therefore, the diaphragm would be obliged to move five or six times as far downward as the ribs move upward, in order to make room for the same amount of air. In other words, the ribs need only make about one-fifth or one-sixth as much effort as the diaphragm, and effort—conscious, noticeable effort—is one of the first things to be avoided in any art and especially in the art of singing. "If a full, pan-costal inspiration be taken after a complete expiration," writes Dr. Harry Campbell in his "Respiratory Exercises in the Treatment of Disease," "no more air,
or at all events only a small quantity, can be inhaled by means of the diaphragm." This, however, should be construed as meaning that, after the diaphragm has performed its correct function in inspiration, any further violent effort on its part is practically futile. For the term "full, pan-costal inspiration," substitute "mixed costal and diaphragmatic," which will imply that the diaphragm has done its duty by the singer—and it is that apparently effortless performance of its duty that gives it its real importance. The diaphragm really is a most courteous and accommodating muscle when its assistance is politely invited, but most obstreperous when one tries to force it into action.
In proper breathing the feeling is as if the intake commenced with the upper ribs and terminated over the abdomen. We even feel, in taking in a deep breath, as if all our power were directed toward the four or five upper ribs and as if we were giving the greatest expansion to the very apex of the lungs; but the simple fact is that the six upper ribs encompass more space than the six lower ones, consequently in proper breathing the most movement is experienced where the cavity formed admits of the greatest expansion of the lungs.
To say that no other style of breathing excepting that which has been described as correct, the mixed costal and diaphragmatic, ever should be employed, would be a mistake, but any other should be employed, when at all, only for rare and specific effects. For example, a tenor in reaching for a high note may find that the violent raising of the collarbone and shoulder-blades, which is involved in clavicular breathing, assists him at the critical moment, and he may, rightfully, perhaps, employ that method in that one great effort of an evening—remembering, however, that Rubini actually broke his collarbone in delivering a very high note. Tenors sometimes reach for their high notes with their arms and legs, and if the high note comes out all right, we forget the effort in the thrill over the result, provided effort does not degenerate into contortion. Similarly in an unusually powerful, explosive fortissimo, a momentary use of pure abdominal breathing may be excusable. But these are exceptions that prove the rule, and very rare exceptions they should remain.
In breathing, the correct method of inspiration is to provide the room required for the inflation of the lungs by enlarging the chest-cavity to its greatest possible extent, which is accomplished by expanding
the whole framework of the ribs and allowing the diaphragm to descend, the clavicle rising passively while the wall of the abdomen at first extends and then, as to its lower anterior portion, slightly sinks in.
Sir Morell Mackenzie recognized that artistic inspiration is a combination of methods. "When costal or diaphragmatic breathing is spoken of," he writes in "Hygiene of the Vocal Organs," "it must always be remembered that in the normal human body both methods are always used together, the one assisting and completing the other. The terms are in reality relative, and are, or should be, applied only as one or the other type predominates in an individual at a given time." The only trouble about applying these terms singly to genuinely artistic breathing is that, in the nomenclature of respiration, they signify methods that are only partial, whereas correct inspiration is mixed costal and diaphragmatic, with a touch of the clavicular added. Such, then, is that "natural" method which also is artistic. It is based on sound physiological laws; and because these laws are, in turn, founded on fact, it is as efficient in practice as it is correct in theory.