Though this is the case, the voice-producer will succeed best if he gives attention to the resonance-chambers, after having put the breathing mechanism into the right condition. There should be as little movement of the chest walls, diaphragm, larynx, etc., as possible. The whole is a question of tension, but not rigidity, and the reason the staccato effect is so difficult for most persons is that they attempt to accomplish it by _excessive movements_ of the breathing apparatus or larynx. The _mind_ must be relieved of any feeling of undue tension, and the result attained by the establishment of a close connection between the ear and the resonance-chambers. The first interrupted effects should be of very brief duration and as _piano_ as possible, but the attempt to produce the real staccato may to great advantage be preceded by an exercise recommended in Chapter VIII.,--viz., singing a tone of some duration, then suddenly interrupting it, and, with the same breath, beginning the tone again as suddenly as it was interrupted. In fact, till this can be done with ease the staccato proper should not be attempted, for though the principles involved are the same, the execution requires far more skill than the exercise recommended for an earlier stage, and which it is well to continue throughout. Simple as these exercises seem from mere description, or as carried out with a certain degree of success, perfection in them is not to be attained short of years of the most diligent study. How many singers living can sing an ascending and a descending scale, in succession, with a perfect staccato, to mention no other effect? Yet among all the resources of dramatic singing and speaking none is more important than this one. What so eloquent as the silence after a perfect stop--a complete and satisfactory arrest of the tone? How many modern actors are capable of it? How many singers? Instead of the perfect arrest, the listener is conscious, not of the rounded and complete tone, but of an edge more or less ragged. There is some noise with the actual tone. The above exercises, when carried out to a perfect result, give us _bel canto_ singing, for which the old Italian school was so noted, and which is now largely a lost art, not so much because the methods are not known to teachers, as because students will not do the work necessary to attain to this _bel canto_. We seek for short cuts, and we get corresponding results. The _bel canto_ is, simply, beautiful singing, the result of perfect technique, and is opposed to effects which are not truly artistic, though no doubt often highly expressive to the unmusical and the inartistic. They may appeal to us as feats, but they are not artistic results, and, as we have before insisted, they are injurious in many cases to the vocal organs, while good voice-production strengthens them.