Omaha daily bee., 1909-04-04
"voICE" TEACHERS IN ACTION
Typical Experience with the Musical
Fakirs Infesting New York

City.
Reginald Wright Kaufman. telling OF the
various methods now being used to extrot
money from the ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
voice, mentions a number of amusing
methods in the February number of
Hampton's Magazine. He says:
In Newark. n. j., not long ago, there was
a clerk in a store who had never sung a
note and never wanted to. She was a frail,
pale girl upon whom there had early in life
fallen the care of two smaller and Trailer
sisters, and she had no ambition beyond her
duty to them. Nevertheless, the stores
hours were long; the shop was poorly ven-
tilated: the girl took cold and began to fear
at last that she was going into what her
friends called a decline. She went to a
physician. who prescribed for her and then
advised her TO take singing lessons in order
to develop her lungs. That is how. one day,
she found herself In the net OF a New York
fakir. This woman was a blonde. who
could not have weighed an ounce under 800
pounds.
81 do not really care to learn to sing"
explained the little clerk. who faded into
absolute zero in such a presence. at is
mostly for the breathing exercise thai l
came"
"Ah." replied the 3O0-pounder, 'ln that
case you have found the right person. Come
into the next room"
The next room was fitted out not unlike a
surgery. There were long shelves on the
walls, filled with strange. crooked instru-
ments (entlrely for exhibition purposes),
and beside the big window stood, spread out
to its full length, a regulation operating
table.
G up here instructed the heavy
weight. The clerk got up.
Now, then" said tho heavyweight, and
with amazing agility. she leaped from the
floor and landed her 800 pounds In a sitting
posture, securely upon the patients chest.
Take a fun breath she instructed.
81 can't" gasped the clerk.
Exactly" responded the 3O~O-pounder.
1T is Just as I supposed. You have been
breathing wrong all your life, All that
you will have to do now Is to come here
every day, until under my instruction, yau
are able TO breathe correctly with my
weight on your chest. You will soon find
II as easy to do it that way as any other"
The girl did learn to breathe correctly,
but not in such a school. She is back in the
store now, and. the other day, was telling
OF her experience to a friend who sings
In the choir OF a church on lower Fifth
avenue.
II know a worse one than that" said
the friend, mentioning an address on
Twenty-third street. HE uses what he
calls the DemOsthenes Method That means
you have 10 practice with your mouth full
OF marbles. / tried it. but didn't seem TO
make any progress, so I told him that l
couldn't get along because I couldn't over
come my childish fear OF swallowing the
marbles. lie said l must overcome il, He
must not be held responsible for my
stupidity or timidity. and all his other
students were adopts a. holding the
marbles on their tongues and singing like
larks. But for straight breathing exercises.
have you ever heard OF the Umbrella
Method?"
1t is a question worth the asking for, in
one OF the largest studios in New York, il
has been so successfully employed that its
in s..or has grown really rich from it's
uses.
The inventor, who is also the sole pro-