s _piano_ as possible, but the attempt
to produce the real staccato may to great advantage be preceded by an
exercise recommended in Chapter VIII.,--viz., singing a tone of some
duration, then suddenly interrupting it, and, with the same breath,
beginning the tone again as suddenly as it was interrupted. In fact,
till this can be done with ease the staccato proper should not be
attempted, for though the principles involved are the same, the
execution requires far more skill than the exercise recommended for an
earlier stage, and which it is well to continue throughout.

Simple as these exercises seem from mere description, or as carried
out with a certain degree of success, perfection in them is not to be
attained short of years of the most diligent study. How many singers
living can sing an ascending and a descending scale, in succession,
with a perfect staccato, to mention no other effect? Yet among all the
resources of dramatic singing and speaking none is more important than
this one. What so eloquent as the silence after a perfect stop--a
complete and satisfactory arrest of the tone? How many modern actors
are capable of it? How many singers? Instead of the perfect arrest,
the listener is conscious, not of the rounded and complete tone, but
of an edge more or less ragged. There is some noise with the actual
tone.

The above exercises, when carried out to a perfect result, give us
_bel canto_ singing, for which the old Italian school was so noted,
and which is now largely a lost art, not so much because the methods
are not known to teachers, as because students will not do the work
necessary to attain to this _bel canto_. We seek for short cuts, and
we get corresponding results.

The _bel canto_ is, simply, beautiful singing, the result of perfect
technique, and is opposed to effects which are not truly artistic,
though no doubt often highly expressive to the unmusical and the
inartistic. They may appeal to us as feats, but they are not artistic
results, and, as we have before insisted, they are injurious in many
cases to the vocal organs, while good voice-production strengthens
them.

5. The swell is simply a modification of the sustained tone. When a
tone is perfectly sustained, without any change in volume, etc., we
have a most valuable effect, and one very difficult to achieve,
because it implies such a steady application of the breath power and
such nice adjustments of all the parts concerned. To produce a