est tone, even if there should
be eight to twelve tones in the passage, so that the scale slides
down, not a pair of stairs, but a smooth track, the highest tone
affording, as it were, a guarantee that on the way there shall be no
impediment or sudden drop. The resonance form, kept firm and tense,
must adapt itself with the utmost freedom to the thought of every
tone, and with it, to the breath. The pressure of the breath against
the chest must not be diminished, but must be unceasing.

To me it is always as if the pitch of the highest tone were already
contained in the lowest, so strongly concentrated upon the whole
figure are my thoughts at the attack of a single tone. By means of
_ah-e-[=a]_, larynx, tongue, and palatal position on the lowest tone
are in such a position that the vibrations of breath for the highest
tones are already finding admission into the head cavities, and as far
as possible are in sympathetic vibration there.

The higher the vocal figures go the more breath they need, the less
can the breath and the organs be pressed. The higher they are, the
more breath must stream forth from the epiglottis; therefore the
_[=a]_ and the thought of _e_, which keep the passages to the head
open. But because there is a limit to the scope of the movement of
larynx and tongue, and they cannot rise higher and higher with a
figure that often reaches to an immense height, the singer must resort
to the aid of the auxiliary vowel _oo_, in order to lower the larynx
and so make room for the breath:

[Music illustration]

A run or any other figure must never sound thus:

[Music illustration]

but must be nasally modified above, and tied; and because the breath
must flow out unceasingly in a powerful stream from the vocal cords,
an _h_ can only be put in beneath, which makes us sure of this
powerful streaming out of the breath, and helps only the branch
stream of breath into the cavities of the head. Often singers hold the
breath, concentrated on the nasal form, firmly on the lowest tone of a
figure, and, without interrupting this nasal form, or the head tones,
that is, the breath vibrating in the head cavities, finish the figure
alone. When this happens the muscular contractions of the throat,
tongue, and palate are very strong.

[Music illustration: L'oiselet. Chopin-Viardat]

The turn, too, based on the consistent connection of the tonal figure
with the nasal quality,--which is obtained by pronouncing the _oo_