Singing and choirs

Abstract

Singing provides older persons with opportunities to engage in music performance, whether or not they have done so in the past. It offers the esthetic pleasure of making music, and much more. Singing in a group has been associated with enhanced social bonding, general feeling of well-being, sense of personal growth, reductions in stress, pain, and loneliness, increased interest in life, and heightened immune function. The present chapter reviews research related to these findings focusing primarily on studies of choirs of healthy older persons. Attention is also directed to individual singing lessons for older adults. Whereas studies have suggested that experience playing a musical instrument is associated with cognitive resilience in senior years, few studies have considered the benefits of vocal training from this perspective. Neuroscience reveals that the same basic brain network underlies music making on a musical instrument and with the voice, and this further leads to the speculation that like playing a musical instrument, singing holds promise as a cost-effective way to help maintain and increase health and well-being in older adults.