Excellent suggestions for these will be found in a little book called
_Class Singing for Schools_, with a preface by Sir Charles Stanford,
published by Stainer & Bell, also in the Board of Education Memorandum
on Music. A special point must be dwelt on. Children should never be
allowed to use the chest register. Their voices should be trained
downwards. In the singing of scales there should be a leap to, or a
start on, a note high enough to be out of the chest register--such as
the high E[b]. The descending scale should then be sung. Breathing
exercises should be taken at the beginning of the lesson. A good
exercise is to exhale on the sound 'sh'. The children will stand in easy
positions for this, the hands on the ribs, so that they can feel the
ribs expanding and contracting during inhalation and exhalation. The
shoulders should be kept down. The advantage in using the sound 'sh' is
that the teacher can thereby tell how long each child makes its breath
last.
When these exercises are finished, and a few scales and passages have
been sung, the class should sit down while the teacher speaks about the
new song to be sung.
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