Page:Choirmaster's Manual.djvu/19

Rh and without wriggling or sniffing slowly draw breath through the nose until lungs are well expanded. Exhale slowly through mouth. (In drawing breath through the nose the air is both warmed and filtered.)

Exercise 2.

Same as No. 1, but place hands on side-ribs and concentrate thought on their expansion when inhaling. (Choirmaster should watch the expansion, and measure boys with a piece of string or tape, and note increase after a week or so of practising.) When lungs are full, exhale explosively through mouth; boys will easily feel the sudden collapse of their expanded ribs and realize the extra space occupied by the lungs when full.

See to it that the shoulders do not rise. If they do, it is a sign of clavicular breathing, which is entirely wrong and injurious.

Exercise 3.

If shoulders do rise, practise Exercise 2, but instead of placing hands on ribs, sit in chair and firmly grasp the underside of seat with both hands; the shoulders are fixed by this means, and cannot rise.

N.B. Insist incessantly that the preliminary to all breathing is the slight indrawing of the front wall of the abdomen, and be careful that too much effort is not expended on it.



Voice-production. In the difficult matter of reminding boys when to use head-notes, the method is adopted in