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Brenda Smith, associate professor of music at University of Florida and co-author of the book Choral Pedagogy, believes that singing is made out to be much more complicated than it really is. Her advice—get back to the breath.

With the choirs you work with, what is the biggest problem with achieving this thing we call breath support?

The biggest issue is misunderstanding posture. Unless the posture is right, when they're asked to take a breath, they end up tightening their tummies and lifting their shoulders. Then based on that, everything else is kind of out of order.

In principle, we live in a sea of air. Singing is vibrating air. Singing is based upon the same principle as sighing. We take a breath, our abdominals engage and we send the air back up our windpipe. We all need to be able to relax to get the lungs to be able to lengthen. Lungs don't expand out with inhalation; instead, lungs get long and skinny. In that process the air outside is heavier than the air inside your lungs, so the air falls in. The muscles engage to send the air back up the other way. 

For choral singers, this relaxation for breath should always be possible. You engage the same muscles you would engage to sustain a sigh. It's not one particular muscle; it's muscle coordination. It's the same muscles that help you throw up—it's just not solid matter they are moving!

Now there's a lovely image!

Breathing for singing is just like breathing for sleep, in principle. It's just that you're standing up, which is a big problem. And you are slowing down the exhalation process to meet the music, as opposed to just letting the air go. So it is much more natural than people think. The vocal folds sit on top of your vocal chords like curtains on a window waiting to be rustled by the air that goes through. We just sing the pitch. It's the same principle as talking.