4. It will also be well for the voice-producer to practise taking very deep and rapid inspirations, followed by the most prolonged expirations.
5. This method of breathing may then be put to the actual test in intonation.
Another exercise very valuable in giving breath-control is the following:
Produce a tone exactly as before, but every now and then, at regular intervals at first, then at irregular ones, cut the tone off short by suddenly arresting the breath, and, after a very short pause, continue again in exactly the same way without taking a fresh breath; and, as in the above and all other exercises, frequently apply the hand and, when more practised, the more exacting flame test.
The first of the above exercises may be represented to the eye by a continuous straight line; the second by straight lines with short spaces between them.
In all these exercises there must never be any sort of push anywhere, neither in the chest nor throat. Such methods are absolutely wrong, because so wasteful of energy. The tone should come as spontaneously and inevitably as the gas from a soda-water bottle when the cork is slightly loosened, or, if this illustration be too strong (it is employed because gas, air, is concerned in each case), let us say, as water from the pipe of a waterworks' system when the tap is turned. The tone should come, the breath must tarry.
If the student does not feel ease, certainty, and inevitableness in result, he has not made a good attack. If he cannot sustain the tone for a few seconds, he should conclude that his method of using his breath is wasteful. In time a tone should be easily held for at least ten seconds.
The purpose of the second exercise is to give still more fully breath-control, and to lead the voice-user to realize how important is breathing for intonation.
The student may ask: "Why not begin, as is often done, by the singing of scales?" Really useful scales are too complex; they imply the use of a series of tones formed according to the principles insisted upon above. The first thing is to get one perfect tone—to use the vocal mechanism under simple conditions; and that tone should be chosen which the voice-user can produce of best quality and with greatest ease, with least expenditure of energy. It should never be selected from the extremes of the subject's range. From the favorite or best tone he should work down and up the scale. After this the scale comes easy, and all actual singing is scale singing—the use of intervals—and all speaking the same thing; so that, from every point of view, this exercise should be the first in intonation, and the student will do well not to leave it till the conditions above prescribed can be fully met. Some singers have continued such exercises throughout a long artistic career.
It is to be understood always that the exercises, etc., recommended in this work are intended for all voice-users, whether they are singers or speakers. It is easy for a speaker to pass from such prolonged tones to the shorter ones required in speaking, but after such exercises he can do so with a feeling of ease, mastery of himself, improved ear, and purity of speech not otherwise attainable.