1. Intra-personal communication and the development of
individual identity, both in music and through music
Confident and healthy voice use
links to a positive
self-concept and an ability to communicate. Successful singing promotes
self-esteem, general confidence and also self-efficacy. The voice is a key
component of who we are; its use reflects our mood and general psychological
wellbeing, which is communicated to ourselves as well as to others (see also
educational benefits below).
2. Singing is a cathartic activity
Singing provides an outlet for our feelings. Through its
physical activity and the related internal endocrine system triggering, singing
can allow us to feel better about ourselves and about the world around us. From
pre-birth, our earliest auditory experiences are biased towards the human
voice, principally from first hearing our mother’s voice inside the womb. All
voice use, including singing, is interwoven with core emotional states that are
central to the human condition, such as joy and sadness. Singing’s
psychological benefits are evident in children’s everyday settings, including
schools, kindergarten, homes, and hospitals, as well as for older people in
residential centres, daycare centres and community choirs.
3. Inter-personal communication
Healthy singing enables us to maximise our potential to
communicate with others. We learn to improve our underlying vocal coordination,
to increase vocal colour (timbre) and impact intentional variety into our vocal
communication. Indeed, for 25% of the working population, voice is a critical
tool-of-trade (including teachers, lawyers, clergy, telephone salespeople,
actors, singers, and business people). Singing exercises the basic voice
mechanism and improves its functional capability, in childhood and across the
lifespan, whatever the context.
The social benefits relate to:
1. An enhanced sense of social inclusion
Successful singing ability is strongly correlated with a
positive sense of social inclusion, of a feeling of belonging to our community.
Singing with others enhances the possibilities of empathic relationships with
those around us. Collective singing, such as in a choir, small group, or larger
community gathering generates a positive group identity, as well as physical
and psychological benefits. This is evidenced, for example, in a comparison of
data from 6,000 children who participated in the Sing Up research evaluation;
children’s higher singing competency ratings were significantly associated with
an increased sense of social inclusion – a finding that was echoed subsequently
in a study of children who participated in an Italian regional school choir
initiative. Singing and social inclusion is also powerfully evidenced in the
communal histories of the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania). Their
‘singing revolution’ in the mid-1980s drew on centuries of shared symbols of
national heritage. This vocal repertoire strengthened and deepened national
identities that led to these countries’ subsequent non-violent independence
from the former Soviet Union.
The musical benefits relate to:
1. The realisation of our musical potential
Singing activity fosters our intellectual engagement with
music. This includes an understanding of musical structure, phrasing, the
development of musical memory (including music’s repetition and variation) and
tone colouring, as well as other musical building blocks (such as pitch,
rhythm, loudness).
2. The creation of an individual musical repertoire (whether
as a listener or performer or both)
There are concomitant social and personal benefits through
increasing the likelihood of empathic understanding of others and ourselves by
the kinds of songs (
music and text) that we experience, whether alone or in
groups.
The educational benefits relate to:
1. Increasing knowledge, understanding and skills about the
world around us, both in music and through music
Singing will likely make you more competent in your own
language, including an improvement in reading skills. Reading lyrics and
reading music are processed in the same neurocortical regions for symbol
decoding. In terms of enculturation and development, recent analyses of
longitudinal cohort data in England and Australia (totalling over 18,000
children) indicate that early musical experience in the home at ages 2-3 years
– including joint and supported singing (such as action songs, counting songs,
nursery rhymes, and children’s songs) – has a measurable impact subsequently on
aspects of wider development at ages 4-5 years. A higher frequency of home
music activities—which are biased towards singing—contributes positively to the
development of the same children’s vocabulary, numeracy, attentional and
emotional regulation, behaviour and prosocial skills.
