No effort is involved in holding the breath. The pause before emission is accomplished without any internal muscular struggle, and without any constriction of the larynx. Some writers lay down the rule that after inhaling, the singer should retain the breath by closing the vocal cords. The only objection to laying down this rule is that it is apt to make the pupil perform consciously an act that is so nearly voluntary as to be unconscious. It inclines the pupil to make an effort when effort is unnecessary. Retain the breath and you can feel the vocal cords close in consequence, and as if of their own accord, and open again with the act of emission. It is all voluntary, or nearly so. In fact, artistic breathing becomes after a while a fixed habit and is performed unconsciously. In the early days of practice the pupil may be apt consciously to perform each of the successive acts comprised in artistic breathing. Gradually, however, messages begin to travel so swiftly over the nerves which connect the will, mind, or artistic sense with the breathing-muscles that these seem to have become sensitive by anticipation to what is required of them and voluntarily to bring themselves into play. The most subtle filament ever spun still is less fine than the line which divides the physiology of voice-production from the psychology of song and, by crossing which, song, the art of Nature, becomes second nature. The singer having after inspiration retained the air in his lungs for a brief space of time, also must maintain control of the stream of air when he begins to emit it. It should rise from the lungs through the bronchial tubes, the windpipe and the larynx into the mouth and flow out from between the lips like a river between smooth and even banks and bearing voice upon its current--a stream of melody. The more slowly, within reason, the singer allows his breath to flow out, the better; and this is as true of rapid phrases as of broad _cantabile_. Breath should be emitted as slowly in a long, rapid phrase as in a slow phrase of the same length. It is only when rapid phrases succeed each other so quickly that there is no time between them for a deliberate, full inspiration, that half-breaths have to be taken to replenish the air-supply. But a singer who thinks that rapid singing also involves rapid breathing should rid himself of that mistaken notion as quickly as possible. A choirmaster once told me that he had trained his boys so perfectly in breath-control that they could sustain a note for thirty seconds on one breath. For them to sing on one breath a rapid phrase lasting just as long, would be equally feasible. It is the slow emission of breath that gives to long, rapid phrases a smooth and limpid quality; and it is the taking of breath at inopportune moments, as badly taught singers are obliged to do, that makes such phrases choppy and ineffectual. This fault is never observable in artists trained in the real traditional