Really I should entitle this blog in a similar way to my blog about ‘big breaths’ – ie. -don’t.  But that is not entirely accurate.  We do want to breathe deeply to sing well, it is just a question of understanding what a deep breath means.  It means – LOW.  Somehow the word ‘deep’ evokes tremendous effort, straining away, filling up with masses of air – all a disaster for free singing. But LOW – means low in your body.  If we want a diaphragmatic breath, and everyone agrees there, then we want all the miles of gut, stomach, liver other organs, all crammed into our bodies below our diaphragm – to GET out of the way! So all of the muscles that hold these organs in place, for instance the rectus abdominus, the transverse abdominus, the obliques – want to be released, relaxed, softened, in short -let go. So when I aim to have a LOW breath, I need to feel in the first instance NOT as if I am buckling up and defending myself, but rather the opposite, as if I am letting every ounce of my body below my belly crash downwards.  And that low ‘let go’ is fundamentally a response to gravity. So don’t think deep, think low.