Board Teachers' Laryngitis—Clergyman's Sore Throat—Throat Exhaustion, etc.—Among the greatest evils of this competitive teaching age is the mischief arising from the constant and at the same time injurious use of the voice. All who use the voice constantly must learn how to breathe, and produce the voice. Failing that, serious mischief, which even the specialist of throat hospitals cannot cope with, must inevitably follow. The only advice that can be given here is, immediately that voice exhaustion sets in, to consult not a doctor, but a throat or voice specialist. The best institution in the world for throat troubles is the Throat Hospital, Golden Square, London, W.
[EXERCISES.]
This first exercise is a most useful one in the uniting of notes and in gaining facility. The student should at first practise it very slowly, mastering four bars at a time. Although I have divided it into fifteen examples, it is really but one exercise, with a minim rest between each phrase of four bars; and it is in this example form that I wish the student ultimately to sing it with the metronome, at say 76, taking breath only at the rest-mark, and making the crescendo—not, be it observed, by forcing the tone and breath, but by a gradual pressing down of the breath.[2]
