Singing can make you feel happy


Two years ago while I was attending the choir and symphony rehearsals for Christoph Eschenbach's performance of Mahler's Second Symphony with the SWR Symphony Orchestra, I thought to myself: If I could ever sing in the choir for this piece, a dream will have come true. 
At the time, however, I was not singing in any choir. Now that I've been singing in the Untertürkheimer Kantorei for half a year, I realize that the experience would potentially be even richer than I had imagined. Back then I was thinking I would enjoy all the rehearsal time listening to the great music. Although I get a lot of joy from playing the piano, most of my musical enjoyment comes from listening to others make music. Little did I know how much joy singing in a group could make me.
My father was the chaplain where I went to high school. At the end of each weekly service (for five of my most formative years) we sang "Oh God our help in ages past". But he was up at the front of the church and I was sitting in a pew. Eight years later we were attending a church service together and we sang that song sitting next to each other. Singing had always been very important to him. When we started singing that hymn, we looked at each other and started to tear up because it was such a beautiful moment. I'm a sucker for beauty. 
Well, I knew that but I was not ready for the power that singing could have on me. A few weeks ago we put away Reinhard Keiser's Markus Passion and picked up this English hymn, the fifth verse of which is the Doxology, which I sang many times in church as a child.

So I already knew Tallis's tune and had quickly learned the lyrics when I spoke them for the choir. I noticed when I sang the English words that my voice loosened up and had a fuller sound, especially on some of the vowels such as /ē/. I naturally knew how to place it so that it resonated fully. 
But that wasn't all! When the 50 of us formed a big circle and broke up into eight groups and sang this tune as a canon, 50 years of yearning seem to have flooded up in me and when we finished, I couldn't control my joy! I shouted out, "Wow! That was fun! Oo-wee, that was great! Wooo!" At that point, the other singers looked at me and acknowledged my outburst and smiled. For me it was one of the happiest moments of my life.
A week later - totally by coincidence, I believe - a member of the choir who hadn't been at that rehearsal sent around an article called "Macht Singen glücklich?" (Can singing make you happy?). Well, of course I had to write him back and tell him about my epiphanal experience. I tried to explain that standing in a circle, singing in English and managing to master a canon in one try led to this wonderful feeling. 
In case you are wondering how the doctors explain it, there's something about oxytocin being released when we breathe correctly and feel good vibrations being produced by an instrument (our voice in this case). But "of all types of singing, it's choral singing that seems to have the most dramatic effects on people's lives," according to this article. But I wasn't far off when I attributed some of my über-joy to the circle we had formed. The article continues, "It's because some of the most important ties between singing and happiness are social ones. The support system of being part of a group, and the commitment to that group that gets people out of the house and into the chorus every week -- these are benefits that are specific to group singing. And they seem to be a big component of why choral singers tend to be happier than the rest of us. The feelings of belonging to a group, of being needed by the other members of that group ("We can't do this one without our alto!"), go a long way toward combating the loneliness that often comes along with being human in modern times."

PS My elder sister read this and wrote me the following note:
"I love what you wrote about being in the choir and singing the round in a round.

I don’t know if you remember or not, but when we were little, we would go to Good Shepherd [Episcopal Church], maybe for the Wed night Lenten services. Not many people there. At the end, we would sing and those of us there would get to choose what to sing. It became a bit of a joke that I would always ask to sing Tallis's canon. The minister would ask others first what they wanted even though I was waving my hand frantically. Then, finally, he’d ask me and I’d say Tallis’s canon. Something about it made me so happy and satisfied. I loved it!

I love it that the same song brought you such an epiphany!







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