h them without burdening them, though keeping them
always more or less stretched, in which the muscular power of
contraction and relaxation assists. Streaming _gently_ out from the
vocal cords, it is now led, with the support of the tongue, to its
resonance chambers, all the corners of which it fills up equally. Even
the strongest vocal cords cannot for any length of time stand the
uncontrolled pressure of the breath. They lose their tension, and the
result is the tremolo.

In inhaling, the chest should be raised not at all or but very little.
(For this reason exercises for the expansion of the chest must be
practised.) The pressure of the breath _against_ the chest must be
maintained as long as it is desired to sustain a tone or sing a
phrase. As soon as the pressure of the abdomen and chest ceases, the
tone and the breath are at an end. Not till toward the very end of the
breath, that is, of the tone or the phrase, should the pressure be
slowly relaxed, and the chest slowly sink.

While I am singing, I must press the breath against the chest
_evenly_, for in this way alone can it be directed evenly against the
vocal cords, which is the chief factor in a steady tone and the only
possible and proper use of the vocal cords.

The uninterrupted control of the breath pressure against the chest
gives to the tone, as soon as it has found a focal point on the raised
palate at the attack, the basis, the body, which must be maintained
even in the softest pianissimo. Control of the breath should never
cease. The tone should never be made too strong to be kept under
control, nor too weak to be kept under control. This should be an
inflexible rule for the singer.

I direct my whole attention to the pressure against the chest, which
forms the door of the supply chamber of breath. Thence I admit to the
vocal cords uninterruptedly only just so much as I wish to admit. I
must not be stingy, nor yet extravagant with it. Besides giving
steadiness, the pressure against the chest (the controlling apparatus)
establishes the strength and the duration of the tone. Upon the
proper control depends the length of the breath, which, without
interruption, rises from here toward the resonating chambers, and,
expelled into the elastic form of the resonating apparatus, there must
obey our will.

[Illustration: Vocal Cords.]

It can now be seen how easily the vocal cords can be injured by an
uncontrolled current of breath, if it is directed aga