CHAPTER XI

THIRD PRINCIPLE

Breath is an indispensable factor in voice production, but _it is not_ the essential power which develops the voice as it is taught to-day. On the contrary, the function of singing develops the breathing apparatus and its power, just as any physiological function develops the organ from which it takes origin. Therefore, _singing_ develops _breathing_, not _breathing_, _singing_.

The suggestion that any one who wants to learn piano playing, dancing, skating, fencing or any other sport should first undergo special training for the development of his fingers, arms or legs would undoubtedly seem preposterous. The same false principle, nevertheless, when related to the art of singing, does not give rise to any objection. On the contrary, the artificial training of the breathing apparatus for the purpose of learning to sing is such a commonplace practice at the present time in the teaching field that all kinds of physical exercises for developing the muscles of respiration and the chest are urged in most books on voice. It would rather seem that the singing students were being prepared for an athletic career.

The author, much interested in the teaching methods prevailing nowadays has frequently questioned beginners regarding the kind of vocal exercises they were taught in their preliminary work, and has often been informed that their training was confined principally to breathing maneuvers for the development of the diaphragm and breathing apparatus. In one instance the student, a young man of twenty-five years, told that his teacher was making him sing scales for an hour a day, saying: “_he_, _he_, _he_,” and that peculiar exercise had been indulged in for nine months under the supervision of this well-known teacher in New York for the sole purpose of strengthening the diaphragm, so that the pupil could put his breathing apparatus in form for further voice training.

This is by no means the strangest method advocated by singing teachers. From another pupil we have learned of the “_umbrella method_,” which consists in opening the umbrella for the expansion of the chest and closing it during the inspiration. Enrico Caruso, while commenting on these methods, told the writer of a teacher who had his pupils lie flat on the floor and breathe while he was piling a specific number of bricks on their chest. By increasing their number gradually, thus putting a severe test on the resistance of the pupil’s chest, the teacher would measure the progress made each time.

It seems ludicrous that grotesque performances of this kind are still going on in the studios of many teachers in our days of progress and evolution when science has revolutionized our life with the most astonishing discoveries.

Independently, however, of these considerations, the fact that breathing is a physiological function brings this subject into the field of science, which alone can establish well-defined rules of physiology in reference to the act of singing. The rules of physiology and no others must be in charge of the function of breathing during the process of voice production.

We remember having read this invaluable statement in a book on singing: “He sings best who attains the best results with the least expenditure of energy.” It could be advantageously completed by adding: “He sings the longest who forces his voice the least.”

Breath in voice production is unquestionably a most important factor; but its importance must be properly appraised and considered more in the light of _breath distribution_ for attaining an artistic style of singing, than in that of force. The principal error of the many voice experts and teachers is that they totally disregard, when it comes to voice production, the fundamental law of physiology that governs all human functions: “the minimum of energy for the maximum of efficiency.”

The amount of energy developed by a human organ in order to produce a certain action constitutes what is called a _physiological function_. This amount should be the minimum the organ can produce, and the result should be the maximum of efficiency as related to the energy employed. This balanced relationship between power and efficiency constitutes the _normal function_ of an active organ, and establishes the correct mechanism of every organic function.

Applying this principle to the physiological mechanism of breathing in voice production, it is evident that the minimum of breath which is capable of putting in vibration the vocal cords and generating sufficient sound vibrations for producing the different tones of the vocal range, constitutes the _normal amount required_ for the correct function of singing.

This establishes the fundamental relationship between the moving power—the breath, and the producing power—the larynx.

From this principle we derive the very important deduction that only the _normal_ breath has the physiological property of producing correct tones; in other words, scientifically, only the normal breath can give the exact number of vibrations necessary to produce a tone in its exact pitch, and in its normal volume, loudness, and quality. A surplus of breath, by increasing the number of vibrations of the tone, alters the pitch and the aforementioned dimensions—volume, quality, and loudness.

Another fact that has been discarded in general is the evident danger of exposing the voice to physical deterioration by using the breath under high pressure, for, were it recognized, its employment would be radically modified.

No real advantage, under any circumstances, can result from use of the voice under high pressure, just as no advantage can accrue to a fencer from using his arm under a terrific strain.

In every wind instrument, oboe, clarinet, flute, etc., the expert player employs an amount of breath rather small compared with that of the inexperienced player; and the tone of the instrument is much larger and more melodious in the former case than in the latter. The instrument itself, if played always under high pressure, deteriorates easily and lasts but a few years; after some time of strenuous use no sound can be gotten out of it unless a tremendous amount of breath is spent. The same happens with pianos after years of hard pounding.

In the vocal apparatus these conditions are more manifest. In fact, by blowing forcibly into an ordinary wooden or metal instrument its walls, being rigid, do not react; while in the vocal instrument the muscles and cartilages of the throat, and above all the vocal cords can be very much affected by the violent stroke of the blast of air. The throat reacting becomes very tense, and the vocal cords under the exaggerated pressure cannot produce their vibrations normally, since their movements are not coördinate, equal and balanced, for lack of proper control.

When the vibrations of the vocal cords are not equal, synchronous and balanced, they cannot, according to the laws of acoustics, produce perfect tones, because this condition establishes the decisive difference between tone and noise. The voice, therefore, produced under high pressure, approaches in quality rather a noisy sound than a distinct tone and loses all the characteristics attached to its natural beauty, besides being out of the scientifically correct pitch. The result is that the efforts and large expenditure of energy used by singers serve the sole purpose of deforming and wasting what nature provided in a correct form—the precious gift of a beautiful voice.

From this fundamental fault many others of psychological nature originate, all of which combine to make of the most spontaneous and easy act of singing a very difficult and dangerous function. The fatal consequences are the deformity and the deterioration of the vocal organs, which are destined to wear out more easily than any wind instrument.

The fact that many singers force their voices with the idea of getting better results invites this question: Do they realize that they are forcing? Do they foresee the disastrous consequences which they are inviting by doing so?

Usually _not_. As a matter of fact any remark made to them to the effect that they are abusing their vocal organs is always emphatically denied; they assure you that they _are not using_ any force; that their singing is the easiest and most spontaneous action. Meanwhile they are giving full evidence that they have not voice enough left for making this explanation convincing—a peculiar and unfortunate psychology! An intoxicated person, while trying to stand on his feet, always persists in saying, “Do you think I am drunk?”

Thus we find this class of singers always ready to make an emphatic show of the expansion of their chests, and to parade around asking people _to feel with their own hands_ the resistance of their diaphragm; and while their strenuous singing is a real effort they do not hesitate to say that it comes to them most naturally.

These singers see only the spring of their careers and vanish before the summer.

What is responsible for this absence of self-judgment?

A little thought brings about this conclusion. The mechanism of voice production which these singers, by discarding natural laws, employ under high pressure of breath, establishes from the very outset of their voice education a false background of rules and theories on which their psychological conception of singing is formed. Adding to this the faulty training which gradually deteriorates their vocal organs by exercises of an injurious nature, it is inevitable that the wrong foundation becomes the natural standard of voice production for these students who are to be the future singers.

On the other hand, the fact that they have never been accustomed to a normal production of tones makes them unaware of the difference between their voice production and the correct one.

Therefore, they can never see their own defects, just as the ragtime player, while he bangs heavily on the piano, cannot see the difference between his playing and the delicate touch of a refined interpreter of Chopin.

The real responsibility for the false conception of the important part breath control plays in the production of the voice rests entirely with the incompetent teachers of to-day, whose methods are based on erroneous principles.

The absurd and unnatural use of the breathing apparatus, and especially the _magic_ power centered on the diaphragm, constitute the true cause of so much bad singing nowadays. The few celebrities of the singing stage we possess offer us the best evidence against these erroneous methods.

If it were true that the power of breath and the strength of the diaphragm play such an important part in the mechanism of voice production, what would happen to those who are not endowed with such physical resources of large proportions? It would seem that those of small stature and of delicate structure would be deprived of great vocal production.

Bonci, for instance, is one of our greatest and most correct singers, whose breath has never failed to assist him in his artistic delivery; yet everybody knows that Bonci is not built like an athlete.

It is a strange coincidence that many coloratura sopranos and lyric tenors who sing mostly in the upper tones of the range and who, according to the theories in vogue, should require a huge amount of breath and terrific strength of the diaphragm for the support of their sustained tones, happen to be rather undeveloped physically and oftentimes have not even the power of breath resistance given to the average person. We can cite the case of a world-famous coloratura soprano, very frail and delicate, who startled the musical world with an instantaneous success, and whose breath never failed her in the most difficult executions of her coloratura variations. On the other hand, we could name a large number of strongly developed singers, with large chest expansion, whose voices are painfully poor and insufficient. Taking into consideration their physical appearance, their developed lungs, muscles of respiration and all other organs related to the vocal apparatus, these athletic specimens could offer no excuse for the insufficiency of their voice if it were true that voice production depends so much on the strength of breath.

It is evidently untrue that with the aid of physical equipment capable of producing a large amount of breath, or with a particularly well-developed diaphragm a singer is endowed with the indispensable assets for good voice production. This false theory, which unfortunately is almost universal to-day, can hardly be defied without offending the traditional feelings of the faithful believer in the diaphragm’s almighty power! Furthermore, this erroneous principle has so influenced the musical world that even those outside the singing field, such as some music critics and dilettanti, have set the power of breath and the strength of the diaphragm as a standard in appraising the value of an operatic or concert singer. “Short of breath,” “diaphragm support,” “strength of breath” are the usual epithets employed in the discussion of artists and their singing merits.

Even the great Caruso has not escaped the application of this false standard of judgment; he whose phenomenally sustained tones were not the result of a strenuous breath-power but of a marvelously balanced distribution of it which enabled him to indulge in his most striking effects.

The greatest singers of the past knew very little indeed about the diaphragm and the mechanism of voice production in general; still their names remain revered in the memories of music lovers. I believe that most of our best contemporary singers have only the vaguest notion of the physical mechanism of the voice, but they are not to be reproached as long as their singing conforms with natural laws.

The following incident has been related to us by a prominent American soprano. The famous Adelina Patti was visiting the studio of a world-renowned singer and teacher in Paris to hear some of his pupils. After one of the students, who had been cautioned by the professor as to the use of his diaphragm, had finished singing, Patti turned to the teacher and very candidly inquired, “Well, what is that diaphragm? I never heard of it during my career.” This is one of the most striking remarks made by an indisputable authority in confirmation of our theory.

In the fields of Italy the author has heard the peasants—while they work at picking olives or grapes from the ground—sing in a chorus their popular folk songs, as is their custom. Among them he could detect some soprano voices reaching such high pitch that it was almost inconceivable to imagine that human voices could attain such altitudes. Yet these natural singers were kneeling on the ground in a cramped position, and, judging from the beauty and the ease of their voices, wonderful and blessed seemed the absence of theories and methods about the use of the diaphragm in singing. Their voice production was physiologically as perfect as it was unconscious, and I am sure that the diaphragm-apostles of the teaching fraternity of to-day would feel doubtful about their theories had they the opportunity to hear them.

Here, in New York, a little boy eleven years of age, born of poor parents, was discovered by an American physician, who, while passing through one of the streets of the lower East side, was attracted by a beautiful voice coming from one of the crowded tenements. The physician made inquiries about the possessor of the beautiful voice and was greatly astounded when he was presented to a tiny, underdeveloped lad. The same evening the child was presented to the writer, who, looking at the tiny singer, concluded that the matter of his voice had been exaggerated by the enthusiastic discoverer. He asked the child what he could sing. “Pagliacci, Martha, Rigoletto,” was the unexpected answer. “Who taught you to sing?” “Caruso ... on the phonograph,” he answered. And the child, taking the floor like an experienced tenor, sang one after another of the most difficult arias from the above-mentioned operas, with a big resonant voice, in which the natural sentiment and pathos were not secondary to the dramatic force and expression suggested to the child by the powerful singing of his teacher—Caruso.

During the wonderful and touching performance of this little singer one could not refrain from a sense of pity for those mighty disciples of a _trained diaphragm_, who, while trying in vain to produce perhaps one-half the amount of voice of that miniature tenor, look almost ready to explode like rubber balloons.

What then, is this concern about the breath? Why the need of such long training for the artificial development of the diaphragm?

Breathing is a natural function, independent even of our own will. We cannot prevent breathing. Let nature, then, take care of this function; she will provide for it when necessity presents itself. Let nature suggest or rather carry out her own mechanism of breathing, and let us not attempt to interfere with it and deform it.

We breathe all the time, whether awake, asleep or unconscious. Our very life is dependent on this providential function and we have no reason to think of it. _Why then should we devote so much thought to it when singing?_

Of course we must discriminate between _force_ of breath and _skill_ of distribution. If more attention and effort were given to the latter a proper conception of the mechanism of singing would be obtained. The singer who after a few tones is compelled to take another breath does not know how to distribute his breath, even though he may be an expert in breathing and in the art of using his _highly trained diaphragm_.

On the other hand, the singer who knows how to distribute his breath never runs short of it, and the normal respiration furnishes him enough power with no cause to worry about the strength of his diaphragm or his intercostal muscles. Nature helps him in the most exceptional instances, such as exist in certain operatic arias where a surplus of air is necessary to produce dramatic effects, coloratura variations and long cadenzas. Caruso’s singing in the “Pagliacci” aria was the typical demonstration of this statement.

Our conception about the all important factor—the moving power—in the mechanism of voice production discards all theories and suggestions related to the different types of breathing, such as the clavicular costal or abdominal respiration because we believe that the student of singing should not be conscious while performing this natural function of life. The physiological respiration, which we employ from our birth, is the natural one, and it must also rule our breathing when we are singing.

The beginner who applies to a teacher for assistance in voice culture, and is put under the shameful training of artificial means for developing his breathing apparatus like a circus athlete, and whose mind is fed on the absurdity that the secret of good singing lies in the strength of his breath and the power of his diaphragm, is misled at the very outset of his career, and is given a false foundation. He invariably loses the spontaneous conception of singing, which usually is given by nature itself as a compliment of her gift of a beautiful voice. It should, therefore, be left to nature to take care of her own product—the voice—and if the student is endowed with intelligence and a marked musical sense he does not need any artificial help other than a guiding hand to watch his development and to keep him always under the control of natural laws. The guiding hand should be the teacher and nothing artificial should be substituted for nature itself.

The strength of the breath and its volume in singing must be the result of a correct mechanism of voice production; by the _prolonged but normal_ employment of breath the muscles of respiration become naturally stronger and gradually increase their power of resistance. This system alone, after years of voice training and a singing career, will acquire that perfect control which is one of the fundamental pillars of correct singing. Practically the same thing will happen as in the case of dancing, fencing, or any other physical sport.

_The physiological laws of respiration, therefore, must be the sole rules to follow_, and all false notions about the artificial development of the respiratory organs must be discarded as dangerous by those who aspire to a successful vocal career.