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The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the benefits of an inclusive community singing group towards well-being.

This study used an exploratory qualitative study (EQS) approach. Semi-structured questions were devised and used to elicit participants’ experiences on the impact of an inclusive community singing group towards well-being. A thematic approach underpinned by the four phases of The Silences Framework was used to analyse the data.

This study found the following benefits of an inclusive community singing group towards well-being Connecting with others, Physical improvement, Learning new skills, Giving to others and Mindfulness.

This study concluded that inclusive community singing plays a pivotal role in enhancing the health and well-being of communities.

The aim of this study is to explore the benefits of choral singing for mental wellbeing and health as perceived by a cross‐national sample of amateur choral singers.

Data consisted of written responses to open‐ended questions. These were derived from 169 participants selected from a larger dataset reporting high and low levels of emotional wellbeing on the WHOQOL‐BREF questionnaire. A majority of participants were female and aged over 50. A thematic analysis was followed by a content analysis and Pearson chi square analyses. Comparisons were made between different ages, genders and nationalities and participants with high and low reported emotional wellbeing.

The analysis revealed multiple themes covering perceived benefits in social, emotional, physical, and cognitive domains. There were no significant differences in frequency of themes across any of the participant sociodemographic and wellbeing categories. The results indicate that benefits of singing may be experienced similarly irrespective of age, gender, nationality or wellbeing status.

Implications for further research include future use of validated instruments to measure outcomes and research into the benefits of singing in other cultures. The results of this study suggest that choral singing could be used to promote mental health and treat mental illness.

This study examines a cross‐national sample which is larger than previous studies in this area. These findings contribute to understanding of the complex and interacting factors which might contribute to wellbeing and health, as well as specific benefits of singing.

A questionnaire survey was carried out in the Glasgow area in Scotland amongst people over the UK age of statutory retirement participating in the community arts project Call That Singing?, with a return rate of 75 per cent. The results demonstrate that participatory singing was perceived as providing worthwhile physical, emotional, social and cultural benefits. Participants reported no overall deterioration in their perception of health over the 12‐year period since the project started: this is despite the high recorded incidence of illness and bereavement during the same period to be expected of people of this age. Participants perceived statistically significant improvements to their general quality of life, emotional wellbeing (including a marginally significant shift in self‐confidence) and understanding of singing. They also reported improvements to their social well‐being, although these were not statistically significant. The research shows that participatory singing is making a contribution to the cultural economy and fabric of the city of Glasgow, illustrated by the increased number of visits to theatres, shows and museums and the increased level of active participation in cultural life.

Clift and Morrison (2011) report that weekly singing over eight months for people with enduring mental health issues led to clinically important reductions in mental distress. The purpose of this paper is to test the robustness of the earlier findings.

Four community singing groups for people with mental health issues ran weekly from November 2014 to the end of 2015. Evaluation place over a six-month period using two validated questionnaires: the short Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation (CORE-10) questionnaire, and the Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS).

In all, 26 participants completed baseline and follow-up questionnaires. CORE-10 scores were significantly reduced, and WEMWBS scores significantly increased. Comparisons with the earlier study found a similar pattern of improvements on CORE items that are part of the “problems” sub-scale in the full CORE questionnaire. There was also evidence from both studies of participants showing clinically important improvements in CORE-10 scores.

The main limitations of the study are a small sample size and the lack of a randomised control group.

No attempts have been made previously to directly test the transferability of a singing for health model to a new geographical area and to evaluate outcomes using the same validated measure.

This paper aims to describe the development and evaluation of an innovative community singing initiative with mental health services users and supporters in East Kent, UK.

A network of seven singing groups was established between September 2009 and June 2010. The choirs met weekly in three terms with breaks for Christmas and Easter, and joined together for two public performances in February and June 2010. In total, 137 participants were involved in the evaluation processes over this period. Of these, 42 provided complete data on the CORE questionnaire, a widely used clinical measure of mental distress, at baseline and eight months later.

Clinically significant improvements were observed in response to the CORE. These changes, together with qualitative feedback from participants, demonstrate that group singing can have substantial benefits in aiding the recovery of people with a history of serious and enduring mental health problems. A limited body of research has also shown that singing can be helpful for people with existing mental and physical health problems.

The research finds marked improvements in mental wellbeing on a clinically validated measure for people with a range of enduring mental health issues participating in a network of small choirs. Qualitative evidence indicates that group singing can offer a wide range of emotional and social benefits for mental health service users.

Singing for health may be an idea whose time has come. The interest in music in relation to health is evident in medical and health‐care research. This paper reviews ways in which music and singing relate to health and healing, historically and cross‐culturally, and shows that music forms a part of the healing systems of many cultures. The paper reviews research on the links between music and health. They include studies that suggest that music has profound effects on the emotions, for example, inducing states of relaxation which are particularly useful as an antidote to depression, anxiety and fatigue. Music has also been shown to enhance physical health through improvements to breathing capacity, muscle tension and posture and the reduction of respiratory symptoms. It may also contribute to social health through the management of self‐identity and interpersonal relationships. The paper explores theories that are beginning to develop about the mechanisms that mediate music for health, including the possible connections between immuno‐suppression, stress reduction, and music. The paper goes on to discuss the role of singing with early years children and community groups of adults. A resurgence of traditional music‐making and voice work in community settings is taking place across the UK, and the paper reviews several community‐based initiatives.

A growing literature is now claiming that participation in the arts, and music in particular, is beneficial to health. Whilst some claims are made for music benefiting physiological health, the main benefit would seem to be for gains in emotional wellbeing. There is a gender dimension to participation in music, with girls being more likely to participate, and boys who wish to sing or play certain instruments facing the disapproval of a “macho” peer culture. The paper reports on qualitative research carried out into the views of 18 boy singers in a well‐known church choir in England, using observation, diary keeping, individual and group interviews. The boys showed a deep appreciation of and engagement with the music. They exhibited many features of high personal wellbeing, including the social competence to circumscribe the proscriptions of “macho” culture. Those from state schools were very critical of the superficial way singing was tackled in their schools. Secondary schools were reported as being more accepting of their singing than primary schools. All the boys were academic high achievers and were particularly keen on autonomous reading, again being critical of the guided reading offered by their schools. The paper concludes that state schools could do more to involve young people, including boys, in singing, and to take the subject more seriously, but acknowledges that the pressures on state schools to deliver literacy and numeracy are making this difficult.

Coordination of group activity is rarely more important than in a singing group that has no designated conductor. This paper aims to explore the group dynamics in an 11-man singing group whose members, all over 60, have without exception occupied senior leadership positions in their working careers. The study arose because responses to a wider research study revealed interesting perceptions of leadership issues in the group.

All the members participated in semi-structured interviews and interpretative phenomenological analysis of the responses was used to process the responses. This enabled the identification of practices that support the group’s success and illustrated how this group of practiced “leaders” respond to a (relatively) conductorless situation.

It was confirmed that the group exhibits several characteristics of self-managed teams and string quartets. All members felt empowered to take a lead, although their backgrounds might have predisposed them to take such initiatives anyway. But the long-serving female accompanist is, by virtue inter alia of her superior musicianship, which appears to overcome any gender bias, in many respects the de facto leader. In performance, the singers synchronize their singing in response to cues from each other, but this could work better if given more specific attention.

Whereas conducted choirs have been extensively studied, such a self-managed group of amateur singers, all of whom are accustomed to leading in their working careers, has apparently not been studied. This study sheds some light on techniques for overcoming the challenges of creating quality performance in such a group and insights for similar groups, not necessarily musical, are identified.

The purpose of this paper is to explore their experiences as singers in a community choir called Arrkula (a Yanyuwa word meaning “one voice”) based in the School of Education at the University of Queensland as performance of song, self, social justice and seeing beyond boundaries. Performing at “gigs” inside and outside the university, Arrkula has been singing together since 2011, and despite an environment replete with neo-liberal ideals of individualism, competitiveness and capitalist driven research agendas, at the centre of their song remains a yearning for social connection, equality and renewed consciousness.

The authors take an autoethnographic creative approach and bring performance of song together with their stories and interviews with choir members to link the “secret space” of the rehearsal with the “public space” of staged performances.

The authors’ aim is to think and perform the potential the voice and voices of Arrkula hold in terms of heightening senses of agency, provoking and empowering a pursuit of freedom and transforming lived worlds through song.

The value of this paper is the authors’ take up of Maxine Greene’s (2005, p. 38) question, “if we can link imagination to our sense of possibility and our ability to respond to other human beings, can we link it to the making of community as well?” to consider what singing for democracy and difference might mean individually and collectively in the current climate of higher education.

This paper aims to explore how sounds and attunements to particular organizations of sound collide across an English language community learning space. The activities in the paper come from a six-week summer initiative that connected middle school youth with community artists for writing songs and rap lyrics, making beats and hip-hop DJing.

This paper draws from the interdisciplinary field of sound studies and, specifically, the concept of aural imaginary to explore the collisions alive and in-motion across the learning space. The paper uses qualitative and ethnographic approaches to explore the research questions.

The findings focus on how youth hear certain sounds and organizations of sound in music as “old” and “new,” and how these shifting listening entangle talk, claims and interactions in the learning space. The findings also trace the ways that youth use sound as an active, aural resource to make competing distinctions between rapping, singing and talking.

This paper reasserts the role of sound in multiliteracies, hip-hop and English education work, keying into the ways it collides with other aspect of the learning space. The paper raises questions about what educators might attune themselves to by considering English education as already taking place in a youth aural imaginary.