A horn player in Berlin with the power of holding a very long breath, once told me in answer to a question, that he drew in his abdomen and diaphragm very strongly, but immediately relaxed his abdomen again as soon as he began to play. I tried the same thing with the _best results_. Quite different, and very naïve, was the answer I once got from three German orchestral horn players in America. They looked at me in entire bewilderment, and appeared not to understand in the least my questions as to how they breathed. Two of them declared that the best way was not to think about it at all. But when I asked if their teachers had never told them how they should breathe, the third answered, after some reflection, "Oh, yes!" and pointed in a general way to his stomach. The first two were right, in so far as too violent inhalation of breath is really undesirable, because thereby _too much_ air is drawn in. But such ignorance of the subject is disheartening, and speaks ill for the conservatories in which the players were trained, whose performances naturally are likely to give art a black eye.
Undoubtedly I took in too much air in breathing, and thereby stiffened various organs, depriving my muscles of their elasticity. Yet, with all my care and preparation, I often, when I had not given special thought to it, had too little breath, rather than too much. I felt, too, after excessive inhalation, as if I must emit a certain amount of air before I began to sing. Finally I abandoned all superfluous drawing in of the abdomen and diaphragm, inhaled but little, and began to pay special attention to emitting the smallest possible amount of breath, which I found very serviceable.
My diaphragm I scarcely draw in consciously, my abdomen never; I feel the breath fill my lungs, and my upper ribs expand. Without raising my chest especially high, I force the breath against it, and hold it fast there. At the same time I raise my palate high and prevent the escape of breath through the nose. The diaphragm beneath reacts against it, and furnishes pressure from the abdomen. Chest, diaphragm, the closed epiglottis, and the raised palate all form a supply chamber for the breath.
Only in this way is the breath under the control of the singer, through the pressure against the chest tension muscles. (_This is very important._) From now on the breath must be emitted from the supply chamber very sparingly, but with unceasing uniformity and strength, without once being held back, to the vocal cords, which will further regulate it as far as possible. The more directly the breath pressure is exerted against the chest,--one has the feeling, in this, of singing the tone against the chest whence it must be _pressed_ out,--the less breath flows through the vocal cords, and the less, consequently, are these overburdened.