Singing your heart out

Everybody is a top-class singer in the shower. If every place we went to had the same acoustics as those found in the bathroom, then the streets, trains and buses would be full of people singing their favourite songs. That is simply because the quality of the musical sound can be enhanced by the acoustics – those being the characteristics of sound transmission in a particular area, such as the bathroom. You may well be saying – quietly I trust – thank goodness we don’t have that. All those would-be Popstars screaming their heads off in public (and hopefully learning how to dodge the bullets (lol)!

However, take it down a level to those who spend time alone, in the garden, or the workshop or walking to work. They should bear in mind that, while singing in such circumstances won’t sound like the earlier version in the bathroom, the act of singing is doing them quite a bit of good.  So, when in the appropriate place, sing your heart out, which is precisely what you were encouraged to do when performing in school or outside in concerts. Well, today there is evidence and robust opinions emerging that say that singing your heart ‘out’ includes singing it back ‘in’. Where major organs of the body, especially the brain and the heart, are obtaining a wide range of benefits from singing. Also, it is important to emphasise that the biggest benefits are judged come from group singing. Still, don’t let that stop you singing your heart out while cutting the grass.

Singing reduces stress and the conviviality derived from singing together in a group creates additional emotional benefits too. Singing in a group, including a choir, is working together and sharing success amid the pleasure from the harmonious sounds created by yourselves.

That has a significant impact.  I can offer my own confirmation of that, from many years of singing in big choirs, octets and quartets. You get a wonderful feeling from it. 

A researcher called Alex Street at the Cambridge Institute for Music Therapy Research claims that ‘Singing is a cognitive, physical, emotional and social act,’ as he studies how music can be a catalyst in helping people to recover from damage to the brain. Again, where the individual joins a group, the act of singing can be employed not only to help repair lung diseases, but also to improve a person’s blood pressure and heartbeat rate. Even more impressive is that research is finding that singing in groups can boost the choristers’ immune system. That must already be strengthening thousands of emaSwati for whom Choral singing is an essential and deeply satisfying part of life. You don’t get the same benefit from just listening to music. Educational researchers are promoting the act of group singing as a way of developing improved cooperation and emotional control in children.

The way group singing relieves stress should be fairly obvious. However, it does more than that. What is additionally impressive is that researchers are putting forward the theory that group singing can actually repair damage to the brain.

Also, group singing is seen as directly helping respiratory conditions, adding to existing medical treatment by guiding through singing properly, embracing the more efficient breathing techniques.

Moving from the impressive to the fascinating, one reads about the belief among anthropologists that our ancestors sang before they could speak, uttering musical sounds to express feelings or the sounds of nature around them. Quite where they got the information from, I’ve no idea. I can’t imagine someone has dug up an audio disc with that evidence in it. 

Our ancestors were not repeating a song of recognition but simply vocalising an emotion and taking it to a higher level. When you think about it, vocalising the act of wild celebration in a moment of triumph can have a musical content. Try it and at the top of your voice, but if the neighbours call an ambulance, don’t blame me.

One word of polite warning – don’t sing in a group when you have a respiratory infection. You don’t want to be guilty of circulating large amounts of airborne virus in the substantial exhalation that is part of good singing. Stay home and get better. Your conductor – including the kombi version – will be pleased with that.