Why we sing

Recently, our producer Justine Paradis noticed something. Humans really like to sing together in groups: birthday parties, sports games, church hymns, protest chants, singing along to Taylor Swift at the Eras concert… the list could get very long.
But… why? Did singing play a part in human evolution? Why does singing together make us feel so good?
Featuring Hannah Mayree, Ani Patel, Dor Shilton, and Arla Good.
For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org/shows/why-we-sing.

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LINKS
Bobby McFerrin in 2009 at the World Science Festival (youtube.com/watch?v=ne6tB2KiZuk), demonstrating the intuitive power of the pentatonic scale, and in 2010, improvising in a stadium in Germany with 60,000 singers (youtube.com/watch?v=53TxDWDahSc).
A short documentary about Sing For Your Life! and OneVoice Circle Singers (youtube.com/watch?v=jZqSdmbxad4).
Check out Hannah Mayree’s music and work (hannahmayree.com).
Dor Shilton and Ani Patel collaborated on a paper (currently preprint) examining four societies where collective music-making is rare. (royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.23…)
Dor Shilton’s paper on the evolution of music as an “interactive technology (journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2059204322108…)” and open-access analysis of patterns in group singing (royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.23…).
This journal presented the hypothesis of music as a mechanism for social bonding as part of an ongoing conversation. (gabryant.scholar.ss.ucla.edu/wp-content/upload…)
SingWell’s forthcoming research (singwell.ca/biopsychosocial-benefits-of-group-…) on group singing, aging, and Parkinson’s disease.

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