let the breath out. Pay very particular attention to this. See how slowly and steadily you can exhale the breath. Now, “get your breath” if you need to -- as you certainly will if you are unaccustomed to deep breathing -- and then do it over again. Repeat this five to seven times. Take about four seconds to inhale, eight seconds for holding, and as many as possible for exhaling. Possibly you cannot hold the breath so long at first; remember not to strain. Smooth, easy, steady -- these are the first essentials. Practice will lengthen the breath. At first I could not inhale longer than two seconds, hold three and exhale three or four; and my heart beat as if I had exerted myself tremendously. It was three months before I could take five successive breaths such as I have described to you.

Right here I want to tell you what a help those three months of practice were to me in vocalizing. I was always troubled with short breath while singing. Four years of voice culture did little to help me. The three months in which I first practiced this breathing exercise it so happened that I was without a piano and never sang a note. Then one was brought into the house and I sang again. In spite of three or four months without a note of practice, I sang as I never had before. Never was singing such pleasure. It seemed to me I could sing any phrase, or two or three, with breath to spare and with a freedom I had never experienced before in my life. Since that time I have never known the old difficulty. I am convinced that systematic breathing exercises without vocalizing are of untold value to the singer.

If you are a man, or a woman who is sensible enough or slender enough to wear no corset, repeat this exercise two or three times each day, always in the same position and with the clothing loosened. And after retiring at night