The Way Music Enriches Our Lives

There are so many ways that singing enriches our lives.  Below are two recent excerpts - one for reading and one for listening - which highlight the qualities which singing instills:

---From Ode magazine, October 2009:


“What’s so good about singing? Well, there are physiological benefits: you use your lungs in a way you probably don’t the rest of the day; you breathe deeply and openly. And there are psychological benefits: singing leaves you with a sense of levity and contentedness. And there are what I’d call ‘civilizational benefits’. When you sing with a group of people you learn how to subsume yourself to the group consciousness because …singing is all about the immersion of the self into the community. That’s one of the great feelings: to stop being me for a little while, and to become us. That way lies empathy, the great virtue ….I want to encourage you to sing….I believe singing is the key to a long life, a good figure, a stable temperament, greater intelligence, new friends, increased self confidence,…and a sense of humor."
 
---The NPR project "This I Believe" has posted this 3-minute lecture by Brian Eno about the power of song.