When this principle of reserve force is not observed, the voice-user may distress himself or his audience in a variety of ways, among others by a bad habit known as "pumping"--_i.e._, endeavoring to produce sound when the breath power is really spent. It is only necessary to refer to it for a moment that its unwisdom and physiological unrighteousness may be apparent. Another term, _coup de glotte_ (blow or shock of the glottis), has led to so much confusion and misunderstanding, which unfortunately, has been followed by erroneous practice, that it would be well if its further employment were abandoned. Breathing, so far as voice-production is concerned, is for the sole purpose of causing the vocal bands to vibrate; and at this stage we may say that the perfection of any vocal result depends wholly on the efficiency with which these vibrations are produced, so that breathing and tone are brought together, so to speak, by the mediation of these little bands, the vocal cords; and this is the justification for speaking of the larynx as _the_ vocal organ. This usage, however, is objectionable, as it tends to narrowness and to divert the mind from other highly important parts of the vocal mechanism. In one sense, the respiratory organs and the resonance-chambers are each as important as the larynx. The term _coup de glotte_ has been sometimes employed as the equivalent of "attack," and again as the synonym of nearly all that is bad in voice-production. As to this latter, all depends on the sense in which the term is employed. Before the vocal bands can be set into suitable vibrations the expiratory breath-stream must be directed against them in a special manner, and they themselves must be adapted to the blast. It is a case of complex and beautiful adaptation. The clarinet or flute player must learn to "blow," and equally must the singer learn to use his breath. The processes each employs, though not identical, are closely related; both use the breath to cause vibrations, and there can be none that are effective, in either case, except a certain relation of adaptation of breath-stream to instrument be effected--with the clarinet-player, adjustment of breath to reed, and with the voice-user, of breath to vocal bands. Exactly what changes are made in the larynx, and by what means, have already been described, and will be again considered in more than one part of this volume. The main fact is that owing to a multitude of neuro-muscular mechanisms the different parts of the respiratory and laryngeal apparatus are brought to work in harmony for the production of tones.