When a singer who is suffering from misuse of the voice comes to a specialist for treatment, the specialist must for the moment become a singing-teacher and instruct the singer in the artistic coördination of breathing, articulation and vocal muscles. The patient, having gained proper breath-control and having had impressed upon him the importance of forward placement and of the normal position of the tongue to correct articulation of consonants, is ready for correction of the faulty action of the vocal cords. This faulty action is due chiefly to faulty attack--a faulty _coup de glotte_--manifest mainly on initial vowels in an audible stroke, shock or check and in the emission of unvocalized breath. This latter is the so-called _spiritus asper_, because the emission of unvocalized breath which precedes phonation gives an aspirated or _h_ sound, so that, instead of _ah_, we hear _haa_. The _spiritus asper_ is caused by a too slow contraction of the vocal cords and their too gradual approach for phonation. In the audible shock of the glottis (sometimes called the "check glottid") the vocal cords are pressed together and the retained breath causes a shock or explosion. Dr. Van Baggen says that the vowel which is thus formed might be called an articulated vowel, which accurately describes the effect, the vowel being enunciated with the circumstance of the articulated consonant instead of with the ease of the phonated vowel. With a normal attack--the _spiritus lenis_ in contradistinction to the _spiritus asper_--the glottis is in position for phonation at the moment breath passes through it. No unvocalized breath precedes it and no explosion follows it. The vowel-attack is clear, precise and distinct. Not only is the voice-emission pure, but there is no needless fatigue of voice, because all superfluous movement of the glottis is avoided. The "check glottid" or glottic shock, on the other hand, involves an undue effort of the vocal muscles, and the compression of the vocal cords causes irritation. The audible shock of the glottis cannot be avoided when it is necessary to accentuate a word beginning with an initial vowel. Constantly used, however, it is part of the misuse of the voice. Dr. Van Baggen recommends, as a method of correcting the too frequent use of the audible shock, that when a word beginning with an initial vowel appears in the middle of a phrase, this word should be united to the preceding one, somewhat after the manner (but more lightly) of the French verbal "liaison," in which the final consonant of a word becomes the initial consonant of the following word beginning with a vowel. For example in "vous avez," the _s_ of "vous" is drawn over to and pronounced with the _a_ of "avez," the effect being "vou-z-avez." If the phrase that is to be sung commences with a word beginning with an initial vowel, care must be taken to employ the normal _coup de glotte_, or _spiritus lenis_.