CHAPTER IV.
BREATHING EXERCISES Enough has been said in the preceding chapter to make clear the necessity of breath control, and to show what constitutes this control for the singer--the professional breather.
If the singer's breathing is nothing but an amplification of normal, healthy breathing, why dwell upon it, why not let it develop of itself?
Unfortunately, many teachers have taken this attitude, overlooking the fact that, although life is dependent on normal, healthy breathing, such breathing is, in civilized communities, not the rule but the exception, simply because normal living is rare; the artificiality of modern life forbids it.

The high pressure under which most people live induces mental tension together with the consequent nervous and muscular tension.

We are, without being conscious of it, so habituated to unnatural tension that automatic breathing is shallow and irregular instead of being deep and rhythmic.
The task, therefore, is to reclaim a neglected birthright--natural breathing--to make it habitual and amplify it.
PRELIMINARY SUGGESTIONS 1.

Breathing exercises to be invigorating and purifying demand plenty of fresh air.
2.

At first do not practise longer than ten minutes at a time, three times a day.
3.