are the more difficult for most people, since they require
special control over the laryngeal mechanism and the breathing
apparatus. Between the singing of a scale in this manner (_legato_),
and as it is frequently done, there is the same difference as in
walking up-stairs as does a perfectly trained ballet-dancer, and this
act as carried out by a rough countryman, used only to ploughed
fields, etc. For a perfect execution, the attack, while decisive
enough, must be most carefully regulated, and the breathing, which is
always to be considered in a good attack, must be of the most even
character; the outflow requires the most perfectly controlled
movements of the respiratory apparatus. In the other form of exercise
(detached tones) there is often, at least, a little more emphasis on
the attack, and the breathing is perhaps not always so even, but in
some passages, in actual singing, the method employed for these less
closely linked tones is in most respects the same as the last.

3. Very different from all the preceding is the mode of production
usually designated by musicians _staccato_, _marcato_, etc. The tone
is attacked suddenly, and as suddenly dropped, which, expressed
physiologically, means that the entire vocal mechanism is rapidly
adjusted, one part to another, and as suddenly relaxed; and the one
seems to be about as difficult as the other. In this a certain sudden
tension of the vocal apparatus is essential. The whole respiratory
apparatus, after the breath is taken, is held more or less tense. In
executing these abrupt (staccato) effects the diaphragm is the chief
agent, and operates against the column of air in the lungs, the chest
and abdominal walls being kept more or less tense.

Though this is the case, the voice-producer will succeed best if he
gives attention to the resonance-chambers, after having put the
breathing mechanism into the right condition. There should be as
little movement of the chest walls, diaphragm, larynx, etc., as
possible. The whole is a question of tension, but not rigidity, and
the reason the staccato effect is so difficult for most persons is
that they attempt to accomplish it by _excessive movements_ of the
breathing apparatus or larynx.

The _mind_ must be relieved of any feeling of undue tension, and the
result attained by the establishment of a close connection between the
ear and the resonance-chambers. The first interrupted effects should
be of very brief duration and a