Our vision, as the European Choral Association is a world where everybody experiences the benefits of collective singing.
To live in such a world, we created the #BenefitsOfSinging online, showcasing the different benefits collective singing has for individuals and the society, based on a curated research database, hoping to have people across Europe and beyond be reminded of / be encouraged to experience them through collective singing!
Today more than ever, we need to intentionally act together – organisations, choirs and individuals, as representatives from all over Europe and beyond and unify our voices and bring choral music in the attention of our communities, as well as on the agendas of the decision-making bodies, both at a national and European level.
#BenefitsOfSinging in a nutshell
- What are the benefits of singing? (Social, physical, phsychological, educational)
- Newsletters on the Benefits of Singing
- Campaign toolkit (curated research list, interview guide, advocacy guide)
- Campaign graphics in 21 languages (and you can add your own)
Share your story with us!
Think about the moments you’ve been singing a song together with your friends, your fellow choristers, your family. Can you remember what song it was? Can you remember how it made you feel?
Write to communication@europeanchoralassociation.org with the subject line ”My #BenefitsOfSinging”. We can’t wait to read it!
What are the benefits of singing?
Enhanced sense of social inclusion
‘ Successful singing is likely to be associated with a more positive sense of self because of perceived competence and singing self-efficacy which supports general self-esteem and the feeling of being social included.’
‘Singing breaks the ice so that individuals feel closer to the group as a whole even if they do not yet know anything about the individual members.’
‘Human vocalization contains key essences of our musical development and fosters our earliest abilities to communicate musically.’
‘There is a clear tendency toward an entrainment effect between singers in terms of HR acceleration and deceleration as soon as they sing a simple structure in unison’
”Toning and singing may offer an engaging and cost-effective tool to trigger beneficial respiratory patterns and the related cardiovascular benefits.
‘Making music together is a highly demanding task for the human brain, on which practically all known cognitive processes are involved: making music involves perception, action, learning, memory, emotion, social cognition, etc.’
‘Group singing leads to increases in both positive affect and the production of salivary immunoglobulin A, a protein considered as the first line of defense against respiratory infection which associates singing with the well-being of the immune function.’
‘Both singing and listening to singing can alter mood immediately after participation in a short singing session and that some of these effects were evident even one week later.’
‘The roles of motivation, confidence, self-efficacy, and autonomy come through as strong influences on the students’ enjoyment of singing.’
Inter- and Intra- communication
‘Speech melodies are the first linguistic elements experienced and mastered, and are indistinguishable from the melodic precursors of singing as essential elements in intra- and inter-personal musical communication.’
‘Before singing music lyrics with the written words, experiencing a song aurally and singing it from the memory creates a strong foundation for eventual reading success.’
Improves intellectual engagement
‘The effects observed for the singing group were that the children scored higher on creativity, had higher levels of abstraction, and showed greater creativity in improvised puppet play. They also demonstrated better motor development.’
Realisation of music potential
‘While a range of generalized abilities may come into play when learning music, a host of environmental and personal catalysts work in combination with teaching and learning processes to develop particular types of talent.’
‘Songs and movement are excellent methods to teach important pre-reading skills and reading to children, and that these experiences significantly enhance the effectiveness of the language and literacy programs.’
To keep updated with the campaign, subscribe to our mailing list.
READ THE NEWSLETTERS
Experience the physical benefits of singing!
In the frame of our ‘Upgrade-Connect-Reach Out’ project, we are lucky to have Volker Hagemann conducting a systematic review of the available research out there, proving the above mentioned benefits of collective singing.
[See here a curated list of research to support the #BenefitsOfSinging]
Feel free to refer to the research at all times and share the research links in your posts, press releases, advocacy letters, etc.
What’s more powerful than storytelling? Make use of your network and the opportunity of having the whole world at just one click away and conduct a short interview!
Can you think of:
- Public figures connected to singing (did you know that Ed Sheeran discovered his passion for music by singing in a choir?);
- Inspiring stories;
- Inspiring personalities;
- Influential people inside or outside of the choral sector?
If the answer is YES, it’s their time to shine. We encourage you to schedule a Zoom Meeting and have them share their story.
Besides reminding and acknowledging the benefits singing and collective singing has on individuals, we strongly believe in the positive benefits collective singing has for society. Therefore, we want to fight for the good name of choral singing even higher up, to your regional, national, and local authorities.
In order to be sure you are prepared to do it, we wanted to design a guide, shaped as a ‘Frequently asked questions document’, which you can follow to really write impactful statements to support your points and have your voice resonate along with the policymakers on a local/regional and national level.
[See here the Advocacy Guide – Frequently Asked Questions document]
What can you do?
- Go through the document and write your statements with your wishes & calls in your mind, always adapting your calls to your local realities.
- To support your statements, use the research provided as well as relevant statistics, as showcased in the Singing Europe Report.
- Ask other organisations to co-sign your statement.
- Send your statement to your Regional, National, and/or local authorities to propose actions they could take to encourage and facilitate and ease collective singing (for example heads of state and government, Ministers of Finance, Ministers of Culture, funding bodies, etc.)
Campaign graphics of other languages
Other useful visuals
Facebook: Banner 1, Banner 2, Banner 3 , Banner 4
Zoom: Background 1, Background 2, Background 3
Adapt the campaign to your needs
We share the vision: a world where everybody gets to experience the benefits of collective singing. 37 million people already sing already in Europe [See here the Singing Europe Report], how many more can we atract?
We strongly encourage you to develop an individualised, national / regional call to action and link it to any existing activity you’re already engaging into.
Develop your own call to action, which should answer the question:
Singing is good for me, what can I do now to experience the benefits of collective singing?
Examples:
For member organisations:
> Read more (direct your audience to relevant articles to your website)
> Become a member (invite your audience to join your organisation as a member)
> Join this event/online event (invite your audience to a relevant event)
For choirs:
> Join our choir
> Join an online singing session
> Join an event
For Individuals:
> Check out this article
> Read about this event I’ve been part of and liked
> Share a video of yourself and your own experience with the benefits of collective singing
How can you contribute?
Translate the campaign contents
Language can be a barrier sometimes, we know that. Therefore, the biggest contribution you could make is to help us translate the contents of this campaign into your own language and post it as such. This way the message will come across more easily.
Create your own content and link it to the campaign
Do you have your own pictures/videos showcasing the benefits of collective singing either through a previous event, an interview, a documentary series? Show them to the world and use the hashtag #BenefitsOfSinging.
Multiply & reach out
In order to reach as many people as possible we would encourage you to multiply the messages of the campaign in your country during the campaign run. We want to reach people at a national level and showcast the benefits of singing through our online campaign. Spread the contents of this toolkit to your network or any other partners which you think could be interested in joining this online campaign.
Interact and use the #BenefitsOfSinging hashtag
> Interact and use the #BenefitsOfSinging hashtag;
> Follow the #BenefitsOfSinging to remain informed about the campaign activities;
> Use the hashtag when tweeting, posting, and sharing any posts about the campaign.
Do you have any questions? Write them to communication@europeanchoralassociation.org.
The #BenefitsOfSinging campaign has been organised in the frame of the of the following projects co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union: ‘Upgrade-Connect-Reach Out‘ and ‘Ignite‘
