Apparently, it's good for you to sing in choirs. It reduces anxiety. I have sung in choirs. I have enjoyed it, sometimes loved it, despite some really significant screw-ups in my day. I used to have a nice voice, acceptable for both solo or choral work. It is getting better again, now that I am not smoking, and not forcing my voice because of the necessities of a small congregation and leading worship in whatever range is on the page.
I find the mere act of singing in the congregation a joy now. I don't have to pick the music, "perform" it, and endure the criticisms, however oblique. Thus I am a great audience for whoever is worship leader. I pretty much like everything, so long as the tempo isn't deadly for hymns, or the lyrics unusually banal for contemporary. Really. The idiosyncrasies of each style which drive non-fans nuts don't bother me much. I don't notice. I like singing, and drumming on the pew in front of me.
Choir, though, still seems to be just one more thing to squeeze in. I'm not going back to that.
The study corrects some for whether the correlation is more in the type of person who sings in groups than in the singing itself; a lot of the linked research on the topic, however, does not make that distinction.
4 comments:
The abstract seems to suggest a hypothesis worth investigating: participating in a psychological study increases anxiety. Or is that already known?
I enjoy singing, though my range is not wide and my key is sometimes idiosyncratic. This seems to embarrass one of my more talented and better-trained offspring.
I love singing in choir. Some of my best memories are choir. I am usually asked several times a year to join a choir. I haven't done it in 25 years. 3 main reasons:
1) wrong time of life. Spending time in rehearsal is low on life priority list.
2) Other priorities in church. I can only do just so many things in church. I have to pick the items where I can really do the most good.
3) I haven't heard a choir in some time that I'm pretty sure wouldn't drive me crazy to sing with them.
I miss singing with a congregation. contempo-rock-bandishy-me focused-gummy praise sucks the life out of the congregation's lungs and leave them gasping quietly while waving their arms trying to reach the surface. It just sucks.
curmudgeon me. I don't care.
Aiiiieeee. Control group was "unstructured time".
Is this a benefit of singing in a choir, or just of singing regularly? Who knows? Certainly not the study authors.
*grump* *grump* bad experimental design, bad! *grump*
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