It is strange that they are not
better understood by the profession.
* * * * *
In this connection it might be well to speak of the importance of physical
culture for the singer. A series of simple but effective exercises should
be used, exercises that will develop and vitalize every muscle of the body.
There are also nerve calisthenics, nervo-muscular movements, which
strengthen and control the nervous system. These nerve calisthenics
generate electrical vitality and give life and confidence. "The body by
certain exercises and regime may be educated to draw a constantly
increasing amount of vitality from growing nature."
A singer to be successful must be healthy and strong. He should take plenty
of out-door exercise. Exercise, fresh air, and sunlight are the three great
physicians of the world. But beside this, all singers need physical
training and development, which tense and harden the muscles, and increase
the lung capacity; that training which expands all the resonance cavities,
especially the chest, and which directly develops and strengthens the vocal
muscles themselves, particularly the extrinsic and intrinsic muscles of the
throat. As we have learned, a trained muscle responds more spontaneously to
thought or will than an uneducated one; flexible spontaneity the singer
always needs. Beyond a doubt, the singer who takes a simple but effective
course of physical training in connection with vocal training will
accomplish twice as much in a given time, in regard to tone, power and
control, as he could possibly do with the vocal training alone.
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