o satisfactory results.

From the girls to whom I am talking especially I must now ask a
sacrifice--the singer cannot wear tight corsets and should not wear
corsets of any kind which come up higher than the lowest rib.

In other words, the corset must be nothing but a belt, but with as much
hip length as the wearer finds convenient and necessary.

In order to insure proper breathing capacity it is understood that the
clothing must be absolutely loose around the chest and also across the
lower part of the back, for one should breathe with the back of the
lungs as well as with the front.

In my years of study and work I have developed my own breathing capacity
until I am somewhat the despair of the fashionable modiste, but I have a
diaphragm and a breath on which I can rely at all times.

In learning to breathe it is well to think of the lungs as empty sacks,
into which the air is dropping like a weight, so that you think first of
filling the bottom of your lungs, then the middle part, and so on until
no more air can be inhaled.

Inhale short breaths through the nose. This, of course, is only an
exercise for breath development.

Now begin to inhale from the bottom of the lungs first.

Exhale slowly and feel as if you were pushing the air against your
chest. If you can get this sensation later when singing it will help you
very greatly to get control of the breath and to avoid sending too much
breath through the vocal chords.

The breath must be sent out in an even, steady flow.

You will notice when you begin to sing, if you watch yourself very
carefully, that, first, you will try to inhale too much air; secondly,
you will either force it all out at once, making a breathy note, or in
trying to control the flow of air by the diaphragm you will suddenly
cease to send it forth at all and will be making the sound by pressure
from the throat.

There must never be any pressure from the throat. The sound must be made
from the continued flow of air.

You must learn to control this flow of air, so that no muscular action
of the throat can shut it off.

Open the throat wide and start your note by the pressure breath. The
physical sensation should be first an effort on the part of the
diaphragm to press the air up against the chest box, then the sensation
of a perfectly open throat, and, lastly, the sensation that the air is
passing freely into the cavities of the head.

The quantity of sound is controlled by the br