Category Archives: Music
Benefits of Singing
Huffington Post – Posted: 04/28/2013 8:53 am EDT
Whether it’s an a cappella group or the church chorale, a small new study shows that singing in a choir could do a lot for your state of mind.
The findings, published in the journal Psychology of Music and conducted by researchers at Abant Izzet Baysal University in Turkey, show that singing in a choir is associated with decreased levels of anxiety.
The study included 35 people who were assigned to either one hour of choir singing, or one hour of “unstructured time” (the control group). Researchers analyzed their positive and negative affect, as well as their levels of anxiety and salivary amylase (amylase is an enzyme that is often used as a marker for inflammation).
Researchers found that the participants assigned to sing in the choir had decreases in their negative affect and anxiety, compared with the control group. Meanwhile, the control group experienced more anxiety and negative affect before and after the hour period.
The benefits of joining a choir could go beyond mental health, too. Norwegian researchers previously reported that participation in a choir is linked with better health and workplace engagement, ScienceNordic reported.
“The health benefits of singing are both physical and psychological,” Graham Welch, chair of music education at the Institute of Education at the University of London, said in a Heart Research UK statement. The benefits of singing range from the physical — because it boosts oxygen levels in the blood — to the psychological — because it lowers stress and boosts feelings of community, he said.
For more wonderful health benefits of music, click through the slideshow:
11 Health Benefits Of Music
1 of 13
Smithsonian – Eight New Things We’ve Learned About Music
Smithsonian – Eight New Things We’ve Learned About Music
Smithsonian – Eight New Things We’ve Learned About Music
April 24, 2013
Music works deep into our brains. Photo courtesy of Flickr user antonkawasaki
In one those strange twists of modern life, we were reminded last week of the power of music–at a hockey game.
It was at Boston’s TD Garden, two days after the explosions that contorted so many lives, and as singer Rene Rancourt began the Star Spangled Banner before the game between the hometown Bruins and the Buffalo Sabres, he noticed that many in the crowd were joining in. Rancourt got only as far as …”what so proudly we hailed” before he pulled the microphone away from his mouth and motioned to those in the stands to carry on. They did, in full voice, building to a stirring finish.
Yes, it would have been a powerful moment had those 17,000 people stood and cheered in unison. But they sang together, without restraint, and that moved us in a way we can’t fully comprehend.
Welcome to the pleasure center
Why is it that music can affect us in such profound ways? “Because it does” seems like a pretty good answer to me, but scientists aren’t that easy. They’ve been wrestling with this for a long time, yet it was not that long ago that two researchers at McGill University in Montreal, Anne Blood and Robert Zatorre, came up with an explanation, at least a physiological one.
Based on MRI scans, they found that when people listened to music they liked, the limbic and paralimbic regions of the brain became more active. They’re the areas linked to euphoric reward responses, the same ones that bring the dopamine rush associated with food, sex and drugs. (Right, so throw in rock and roll.)
Okay, but why? Why should a collection of sounds cause the brain to reward itself? That remains a bit of a mystery, but a favorite theory, proposed almost 60 years ago, posits that it’s about fulfilled expectations. Put simply, music sets up patterns that causes us to predict what will come next and when we’re right, we get a reward. Some have suggested this has its roots in primitive times when guessing wrong about animal sounds was a matter of life or death. What was needed was a quick emotional response to save our skin, rather than taking a time to think things through.
And so, the theory goes, our response to sound became a gut reaction.
And the beat goes on
The truth is we’re learning new things about music all the time. Here are eight studies published in just the past few months.
1) But can you dance to it?: Toronto researcher Valorie Salimpoor wanted to know if our strong emotional response to a song we like is due to the music itself or some personal attachment we have to it. So she had a group of people listen to 30-second samples of songs they’d never heard before, then asked them how much they’d be willing to pay for each track. And she did MRI scans of their brains while they listened. The result? When the nucleus accumbens region became active–it’s a part of the brain associated with pleasant surprises or what neuroscientists call “positive prediction errors”–they were more willing to spend money. In other words, if a song turned out better than they had expected, based on pattern recognition, they wanted more of it.
2) Drum solos not included: Two McGill University psychologists in Montreal say that soothing music can actually be more effective than Valium when it comes to relaxing people before surgery.
3) Unless their favorite song is by Metallica: And it helps even the tiniest of babies. A study at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York found that when parents turned their favorite songs into lullabies and sang or played them on an instrument, it reduced stress levels in the infants and stabilized their vital signs.
4) The ultimate mind meld: Back to brain scans. Stanford neuroscientist Daniel Abrams determined that when different people listened to the same piece of music–in this case a little known symphony–their brains reflected similar patterns of activity. And those similarities were observed not just in areas of the brain linked with sound processing, but also in regions responsible for attention, memory and movement.
5) You know you love “Gangnam Style”…Ooops, sorry about that: Yes, scientists are even doing research on earworms or as most of us know them, songs that get stuck in our heads. And the latest study found that contrary to conventional wisdom, it’s usually not awful songs that we can’t seem to get rid of. Most often, it’s songs we actually like, even if we don’t want to admit it. Researcher Ira Hyman also has suggestions for how to get rid of an earworm–you need to engage in a task that requires the auditory and verbal components of your working memory–say, reading a good book.
6) No language barrier here: Previous research has shown that people with a musical background are more likely to be able to learn a second language, and now a new study suggests that people who speak a language that’s tonal, such as Cantonese, may be better suited to learning music. Understanding Cantonese requires a person to master six different tones, each of which can change the meaning of words. On musical tests taken by non-musicians as part of the study, those who spoke Cantonese scored 20 percent higher than English-speaking participants who didn’t play music.
7) Some day you’ll thank me for this, kid: A study published in the Journal of Neuroscience suggests that musical training before the age of seven can have a major effect on brain development. Those who learned how to play chords at an early age tend to have stronger connections between the motor regions of their brains.
8) Say what?: So loud music may not ruin your hearing after all. At least that’s the conclusion of New South Wales scientist Gary Houseley, who says his research showed that loud music causes hearing to diminish for only about 12 hours. His study was able to demonstrate that when sound levels rise, the inner ear releases a hormone which reduces the amount of sound transmitted by the ear hair’s cells. That reduces our hearing sensitivity for a while, but it also keeps our ears from being permanently damaged.
Video bonus: Then there are the people who can improvise music. Researcher Charles Limb took a look inside their brains.
More from Smithsonian.com
A Few Rare People Hallucinate Musical Scores
When You Work Out to Music, Your Whole Body Syncs Up to Its Music
Read more: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/ideas/2013/04/eight-new-things-weve-learned-about-music/#ixzz2RmljT8ZJ
Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter
A HYMN FOR TODAY – Pilgrim Song
A HYMN FOR TODAY
Pilgrim Song (Composite Hymn)
#681 in Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs, 2012
All the way my Savior leads me,
Cheers each winding path I tread,
Gives me grace for every trial,
Feeds me with the living bread,
Whether good or ill betide me,
Whether skies be dark or clear,
Jesus stays so close beside me,
That I know and feel Him near.
Not forever by still waters
Would I idly, quiet stay,
But would smite the living fountains
From the rocks along the way.
Though my weary steps may falter
And my soul athirst may be,
Gushing from the rock before me,
Lo! a spring of joy I see.
Many friends were gathered round me
In the bright days of the past,
But the grave has closed above them,
And I linger here the last.
Loved ones gone to be with Jesus,
In their robes of white arrayed,
Now are waiting for my coming
Where the roses never fade.
While I walk the pilgrim pathway,
Clouds will overspread the sky;
But when trav’ling days are over,
Not a shadow, not a sigh.
When my journey is completed,
If to God I have been true,
Fair and bright the home in glory
My enraptured soul will view.
Tune: Beach Spring – Benjamin Franklin White, 1844 (arr. 2011)
8.7.8.7.D – Verse 1a: Fanny J. Crosby – 1875; Verse 1b: Katherine E. Purvis – 1896; Verse 2a: Love M. Willis – 1859; Verse 2b: Fanny J. Crosby – 1875; Verse 3a: Caroline L. Smith – 1852; Verse 3b: Elsie, Jack & Jim – 1942 (copyright 1942; renewal 1970 – Stamps-Baxter Music); Verse 4a: Eliza Edmunds Hewitt – 1898; Verse 4b: Jennie Wilson – 1904.
#681 in Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs, 2012
This “composite hymn” uses lyrics from seven different familiar hymns in the public domain, all written in the same meter (8.7.8.7.D, in this instance), which have a common theme of “pilgrimage.” They are set to the lovely (but too often unfamiliar) tune, “Beach Spring,” published in Benjamin Franklin White’s 1844 “Fasola” shaped note book, The Sacred Harp (a reference to the human voice, a Divine “instrument”). There are nine such composite hymns in the new hymnal, “Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs.” Other such composite hymns focus on heaven, spiritual warfare, the crucifixion and sovereignty of Christ, and related themes. Diligent worship leaders can use the Metrical Index (keyed to hymn titles rather than the less familiar tune names, as is commonly done), as well as the forthcoming Digital Concordance, to create similar “composite hymns” to fit a particular worship experience.
George Beverly Shea
Billy Graham’s other voice
By Bob Greene, CNN Contributor
updated 1:28 PM EDT, Sun April 21, 2013
George Beverly Shea sings “How Great Thou Art” to 54,000 people at a Billy Graham crusade in 2003.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- George Beverly Shea, gospel singer at Billy Graham crusades, died recently at 104
- Bob Greene: Regardless of their faith, people knew greatness when they heard Shea
- Graham was electric on stage, Greene says. Shea was soothing and comforting
- Greene: With clear enunciation, dignified presence, he showed respect for his audience
Editor’s note: CNN Contributor Bob Greene is a best-selling author whose 25 books include “Late Edition: A Love Story”; “Duty: A Father, His Son, and the Man Who Won the War”; and “Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen.”
(CNN) — Devoted fans.
Faithful listeners.
Seldom have those words sounded quite so apt.
Bob Greene
They describe the people who enjoyed the singing of George Beverly Shea, who died last week at the age of 104. The name may not be instantly recognizable to some Americans, but that was no fault of his. He accomplished something very few vocalists can claim: During his career, he sang in front of an estimated 200 million people in live performance.
How could this be?
He was the lead vocalist at Billy Graham’s crusades and revival meetings for more than 50 years. If you went to see Billy Graham preach, you heard George Beverly Shea sing.
And, oh, what a voice he had.
It didn’t matter what your own religious beliefs were. If you were interested in the craft — the art — of vocal performance, and you were in the presence of Bev Shea (that’s how he was known to his friends), then you recognized greatness.
He was not fancy as he sang, he indulged in no gimmicks, at times he seemed as calm before a microphone as a man waiting patiently for a bus. But that was deceptive. His deep and immaculately modulated baritone, his resolute attention to precise phrasing and pronunciation, his implicit and unmistakable regard for his audience — this was a professional artist of the highest order.
He was a major and incandescent star to them — they had been listening to him for years.
The fact that he sang gospel music might, in theory, have worked against him, might have limited the number of his potential listeners; for many of the years of his career, the nation was obsessed with rock ‘n’ roll and other forms of popular, here-one-week, gone-the-next records. But he had a certain advantage:
A singer’s audience is often influenced by the person who presents him or her. In the Beatles’ early days, they had CBS television’s Ed Sullivan to do that. It made a big difference.
George Beverly Shea, for half a century, had Billy Graham to present him. At all those crusades, in all those stadiums and arenas, they were a matched pair. Graham wouldn’t have had it any other way.
They perfectly complemented each other’s strengths. Graham, at his peak, was utterly electric on a stage — his presence was crackling and palpable, there was no structure in the world too big for him. In the charisma and magnetism department, he needed no help.
But Shea was steady and soothing and reassuring. He was placid waters to Graham’s blazing lightning. And for all those years, he was a considerable part of the draw.
He never tried to be stylish or trendy; he didn’t shift his approach as the decades went by. He just sang like a dream.
Bob Greene
Bob Greene
Hear and see Bev Shea sing at 1961 Billy Graham crusade
In 1971, when I was getting started as a reporter, the Billy Graham Crusade was scheduled to come to Chicago’s cavernous McCormick Place for a week-and-a-half of summer services. I asked his advance team if I could spend days and nights with them, observing how they did what they did: how they made the arrangements and logistical decisions to get all those people to pack the huge hall every evening. They were welcoming and open about having me hang around.
Those were the years when the most successful and highly publicized musical acts were groups such as Three Dog Night and Creedence Clearwater and Alice Cooper.
So I was struck to find how constant, in my conversations with the people who were coming to the crusade meetings, their unprompted references to Shea were. He was a major and incandescent star to them — they had been listening to him for years, and they couldn’t wait to see him perform in person.
There was a phrase back then that was used in politics: the Silent Majority. In those times of turmoil and earsplitting acrimony in public life, the term referred to those Americans who didn’t raise much commotion, but whose fidelity to tradition was unwavering.
I thought then, and I think now, that the concept also applied to the enduring popularity of Shea. He never tried to be stylish or trendy; he didn’t shift his approach as the decades went by. He just sang like a dream — and, with his clear, careful enunciation and his dignified comportment on stage, he showed unwavering respect for the people in the seats.
To watch and listen to Shea sing “How Great Thou Art,” the gospel number most closely associated with him, was to be in the presence of an absolute master. (And if you’ve ever heard Elvis Presley’s haunting rendition of the same song, then you just know that Elvis had to be a George Beverly Shea fan, too.)
He did fine for himself: more than 70 albums, a Grammy Award, a separate Lifetime Achievement Award from the Grammy organization. In the days when what is now called terrestrial radio — that is, free radio, broadcast by local stations — ruled, you couldn’t help hearing his voice as you twisted the dial through the stations in your town. He was a permanent cast member of Billy Graham’s “Hour of Decision,” which was syndicated to local stations all over the country, and the power of that voice would stop your hand, at least momentarily, from seeking something farther down the dial.
On Sunday his funeral will be held in Montreat, North Carolina, his home for many years; on Monday he will be buried in a private ceremony on the grounds of the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, North Carolina.
I remember asking a member of the audience at that long-ago crusade in Chicago what it was that made Shea’s music so important to her.
“When he sings,” she said, “he just brings me comfort.”
Which, in an often frenzied world, is not a bad sum-up of a long, serene and melodic life.
Lament for the Innocents – Psalom
Stephen Jenks – Singing Master
Huberman’s List: Saved from the Holocaust
CSO concerts at Morton Arboretum, June 2013
Billy Joel at Vanderbilt University
Billy Joel at Vanderbilt University
Billy Joel was recently doing a Q&A at Vanderbilt University (one of my “alma maters”) when a student asked if he could play “New York State of Mind” with him. Then, this pretty amazing moment happened.
ἐκλεκτικός 