How do I breathe?
Very short of breath by nature, my mother had to keep me as a little child almost sitting upright in bed. After I had outgrown that and as a big girl could run around and play well enough, I still had much trouble with shortness of breath in the beginning of my singing lessons. For years I practised breathing exercises every day without singing, and still do so with especial pleasure, now that everything that relates to the breath and the voice has become clear to me. Soon I had got so far that I could hold a swelling and diminishing tone from fifteen to eighteen seconds.
I had learned this: to draw in the abdomen and diaphragm, raise the chest and hold the breath in it by the aid of the ribs; in letting out the breath gradually to relax the body and to let the chest fall slowly. To do everything thoroughly I doubtless exaggerated it all. But since for twenty-five years I have breathed in this way almost exclusively, with the utmost care, I have naturally attained great dexterity in it; and my abdominal and chest muscles and my diaphragm, have been strengthened to a remarkable degree. Yet I was not satisfied.
A horn player in Berlin with the power of holding a very long breath, once told me in answer to a question, that he drew in his abdomen and diaphragm very strongly, but immediately relaxed his abdomen again as soon as he began to play. I tried the same thing with the best results. Quite different, and very naïve, was the answer I once got from three German orchestral horn players in America. They looked at me in entire bewilderment, and appeared not to understand in the least my questions as to how they breathed. Two of them declared that the best way was not to think about it at all. But when I asked if their teachers had never told them how they should breathe, the third answered, after some reflection, "Oh, yes!" and pointed in a general way to his stomach. The first two were right, in so far as too violent inhalation of breath is really undesirable, because thereby too much air is drawn in. But such ignorance of the subject is disheartening, and speaks ill for the conservatories in which the players were trained, whose performances naturally are likely to give art a black eye.
Undoubtedly I took in too much air in breathing, and thereby stiffened various organs, depriving my muscles of their elasticity. Yet, with all my care and preparation, I often, when I had not given special thought to it, had too little breath, rather than too much. I felt, too, after excessive inhalation, as if I must emit a certain amount of air before I began to sing. Finally I abandoned all superfluous drawing in of the abdomen and diaphragm, inhaled but little, and began to pay special attention to emitting the smallest possible amount of breath, which I found very serviceable.
How do I breathe now?
My diaphragm I scarcely draw in consciously, my abdomen never; I feel the breath fill my lungs, and my upper ribs expand. Without raising my chest especially high, I force the breath against it, and hold it fast there. At the same time I raise my palate high and prevent the escape of breath through the nose. The diaphragm beneath reacts against it, and furnishes pressure from the abdomen. Chest, diaphragm, the closed epiglottis, and the raised palate all form a supply chamber for the breath.
Only in this way is the breath under the control of the singer, through the pressure against the chest tension muscles. (This is very important.) From now on the breath must be emitted from the supply chamber very sparingly, but with unceasing uniformity and strength, without once being held back, to the vocal cords, which will further regulate it as far as possible. The more directly the breath pressure is exerted against the chest,—one has the feeling, in this, of singing the tone against the chest whence it must be pressed out,—the less breath flows through the vocal cords, and the less, consequently, are these overburdened.
In this way, under control, in the passage formed for it above the tongue by that organ, it reaches the resonance chambers prepared for it by the raising and lowering of the soft palate, and those in the cavities of the head. Here it forms whirling currents of tone; these now must circulate uninterrupted for as long as possible and fill all the accessible resonating surfaces, which must be maintained in an elastic state. This is necessary to bring the tone to its perfect purity. Not till these currents have been sufficiently used up and passed through the "bell," or cup-shaped resonating cavity, of the mouth and lips, may it be allowed to stream from the mouth unimpeded. Yet the sensation must be as if the breath were constantly escaping from the mouth.
To observe and keep under control these many functions, singly or in conjunction, forms the ceaseless delight of the never failing fountain of song study.