From a paper given at the National Rural Health conference, Canberra, April 2001

All over the so-called developed world, people are re-discovering that singing is good for you. Indigenous and intact cultures have known this for centuries. Songs have carried, and still carry, culture: wisdom, knowledge, history - and the joys, struggles and sorrows of the people. When a people lose their song, they often lose identity, cohesion and morale. When people do sing together, they often find the experience meaningful, energising and refreshing, and they come away with hope, a lift of spirit and a sense of belonging.

In Australia there is renewed interest in this pre-television art. There are thousands of Australians in hundreds of choirs singing every day all over the nation. From the acapella festivals in Melbourne and Sydney, Tony Backhouse wowing them with African-American spirituals, Melanie Shanahan leading the 200-voice Millenium Chorus in the Melbourne concert hall, church and synagogue and trade union choirs - to groups meeting to sing for pleasure at lunchtime in the office (as they do in the VicHealth office in Carlton). Here are some other examples:

• In Newstead, Central Vic (population 480) forty or so people gather for what we call `Vocal Nosh´. They came from a radius of 50 kms, in carloads. They come on the first Sunday of every month. Rock up at 6.00 pm, pay a small entry fee and find themselves limbering up, breathing deep and then singing fully and energetically, encouraged and taught as they go along by a singing leader. After an hour of fun and an amazingly good sound they take a break for soup and a crusty roll. Everyone helps with the set up and the clean up, then they sing for another hour and round about 8.30 do a recap of the night´s favourites and head home into the night air, often singing as they go. Men and women and a few kids. Summer, autumn, winter, spring. Next month they´ll be back for more. They love it. Some of them say they hang out for it.

• Not far away in Castlemaine, a bigger town of 6000, 24 men gather on Tuesday nights to sing. They meet in a room of the community house which is starting to get too small as the numbers of the group grow. It started off with a handful. They sing strong songs from many cultures and they sing acapella (just voices, no accompaniment). They call themselves the Acafellas and they´re led by a local fella who is a musician by trade. They each put in a few dollars to pay him and take it in turn to bring the cake or the chocolate. They get a chance in the break to talk a bit about family or work and last year when one of their members died suddenly, they were there together to sing as his coffin was carried from the cemetery gates to the graveside.

• And they´re doing it in the cities too. In Hawthorn, Melbourne, 15 women have been meeting for 10 years in the lounge room of one of them. They all live in the same street. They call themselves `Shift the Table´ because that´s how each session starts. They´ve sung their way through weddings, separations, raising kids and the ups and downs of life and work and sorrow and death.

There are groups associated with neighbourhood houses, school communities and health centres. And singing sessions at music festivals are usually packed. A notable example is the Boite World Music´s Singers Festival held each year at Daylesford, which attracts hundreds who come to sing (minus instruments) for the sheer delight of it. The offerings are multi-cultural, accessible and engaging and leave people with a positive, broadening, cross-cultural experience.

So `community singing´, with all its health benefits is alive and well, but if that conjures up only images of `roll out the barrel´ or `follow the bouncing ball´ - think again. (Not that there is anything wrong with the golden oldies if it´s your music. If you lived through the war then The White Cliffs of Dover is going to make sense. After all, we baby boomers will be singing Beatles songs and Simon & Garfunkel in our hostels in a couple of decades) This renewed interest in community singing is wide in range and scope - a huge range of musical styles, age range, gender mix and cultural origins. It is simple, strong, usually unaccompanied, relevant to current life concerns and requires no special training or the ability to read music. It is not a rehearsal for something else, just a chance to sing for its own sake, for the love of it, for the lift, for a sense of community.

Science documents the benefits
Looking across the world, the human species is a singing animal. It´s an odd culture - or sub-culture - that doesn´t sing . And from the perspective of those that do, it must seem quaint to see western medical science seriously studying how and why singing promotes health. However, if we need science to prove the worth and health benefits of singing, here are some examples:

1. Researchers at the University of Manchester have discovered that the sacculus, a little organ in the inner ear, responds to frequencies commonly found in music, & is connected to the part of the brain responsible for registering pleasure. This sacculus is ONLY responsive to low frequency, high intensity sounds, which include singing, & it responds within a few seconds of hearing that kind of sound. So you get immediate pleasure when you sing , regardless of what it sounds like to anyone else. Now if there are no criticisms or put downs from anyone else to cause you pain, you´ll find the experience enjoyable and get release of good old pleasure-giving endorphins as well. Singing provides catharsis across the full emotional spectrum. It can give a directly-experienced, felt-sense of happiness. It´s a mood lifter & anti depressant with no side effects. And it´s not news to health professionals that mental & physical health are intimately linked.

2. So what are the physical benefits?
   Professor Graham Welch who is Director of Educational Research at the University of Surrey in Roehampton UK has spent 30 years studying aspects of singing. He says people who sing are healthier than people who don´t. Singing gives the lungs a workout, tones up abdominal & intercostal muscle and the diaphragm, and stimulates circulation. It makes us breathe more deeply than even many forms of strenuous exercise, so we take in more oxygen, improve aerobic capacity and experience a release of muscle tension as well.

3. Community health benefits are well documented too.
   Researcher Robert Putnam did a study of Italian regions called `Making Democracy Work´ . He discovered a positive correlation `between the vigour of voluntary organisations, particularly choral societies and choirs, and the level of civic engagement´. In other words, the more people sang in groups, the higher the level of involvement in the tasks that a healthy community needs to do to care for itself. Presumably ANY vibrant and pleasurable voluntary activity will strengthen the `level of civic engagement´ and Italians may be more inclined to sing than your average Aussie, but it does suggest one accessible, inexpensive option for re-developing the ´social capital´ that we used to take for granted as common decency and good citizenship.

In South Australia the well-known study `Creating Social Capital´ co-ordinated by Dierdre Williams, looked at the long-term benefits of community-based arts projects. It defined Social Capital as

• the degree of social cohesion which exists in communities
• the levels of co-operation between people in communities
• the clear expression of the things valued by communities
• the level of ability and motivation to share responsibility for their collective well-being

They found that social benefits of community arts included

• the establishment of valuable networks
• the development of community pride
• the raising of public awareness of a community issue (90% of respondents reported these 3 outcomes)
• a decrease in social isolation in the community (80% reported this)
• improved understanding of different cultures or lifestyles (66% + reported this)

Community experience documents the benefits
This last point is illustrated by the experience of Sian Prior with the Trade Union choir in Melbourne. `I spent 3 years conducting a trade union choir that included members of almost every left-wing faction in town - some of whom were in bitter political dispute. When they arrived every Thursday night for practise though, all disagreements were put aside for a couple of hours while we enjoyed making music . . .The fact that the choir is still going strong a decade later is testament to the power of music to calm troubled water´ (Melbourne Age)

Singing can also cross language barriers & religious barriers as well
Singing with Kosovar refugees in the camp at Puckapunyal it was only necessary for the group to know that the song was about going home, to trigger a heart-response and a keen sense of understanding and connection with the Aussies present. Following this session an old man spoke to me through the interpreter and said `You have chosen well, this has been good for us, you have given us what we need´. I´ve also worked with mixed ethnic groups in community houses where people were trying to find common ground, and it helped to sing each other´s songs. In Bendigo I conduct a Protest & Justice choir which is auspiced by the Uniting Church but includes singers from several Christian traditions, a Buddhist or two, a couple of self-confessed atheists and people with no religious alliance who like the values & the music. We concentrate on what we have in common & respect differences.

Exhaustion from voluntary work is another theme being expressed in communities as fewer people maintain the same level of infrastructure. People report that singing refreshes and restores energy, rather than draining it . The capacity to celebrate has also been identified as an indicator of a healthy community and singing has often provided input to this.

Particular benefits for particular communities
One of the metaphors used by people to describe their disenchantment is aural/oral `no-one listens to us, we have no voice, we are not heard´. One such cry comes from rural communities. Rural consultant Anne-Marie Holley in Western Victoria has identified the following issues that community singing can address.

• help overcome isolation - a key health issue in rural areas.
• provide a venue for the economically different to meet where there is marginalisation of the new poor by old money and power
• provide an opportunity for `cultural activity that is not sport oriented.´ (a specific request from a forum on `strengthening Rural Communities´ in the Wimmera)
• be a gender-balanced activity where men and women share rather than compete, that is not based on physical prowess, and is free from the threats associated with a re-distribution of power (for a couple of hours at least)

I´ve also sung with nursing students for stress relief, with women who are coming to terms with domestic violence and sexual abuse, and with environmental projects where the community needs to be mobilised.

So group singing and community choirs provide public expression, new avenues for identity, another venue for establishing connectedness and participation that is revitalising.

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