I think all this stuff about "not breathing deep" but breathing *out* is actually a way of getting you to breath with your diaphragm. Once you do that automatically, you won't raise your shoulders or over inflate your ribs - these days when I breath in deeply, I expand my belly, not my ribcage. I never thought about it before, but Peggy Seager was right in that if you breath *out* to the limit, you use your diaphragm to force out the last of the air, then when you relax you actually breath back into the lower part of your lungs, which is where you should be breathing to calm nerves, and to sing properly. It's a good way to get shallow breathers to feel what they ought to be doing.

J

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-Joe Offer-