Karen Loew, writing in the Atlantic, laments the lack of communal singing from our culture: How Communal Singing Disappeared From American Life. I heartily agree. Loew suggests, "in these divided times as much as ever, we need to do some singing and feeling together, united as both citizens and amateurs."
As I read, I was reminded of Steven Mithen's book, The Singing Neanderthals. Mithen explores the origins of music and language, arguing that a holistic musical protolanguage actually preceded language as we now have it.
The argument is fascinating for a nerd like me. If you are interested, but not up for the whole book, you could start here for a summary and some responses by various scholars in related fields. What sparked the connection for me was a suggestion Mithen makes--that participatory music-making is fundamental to human experience for such functions as religious experience, social bonding, emotional expression, and even healing. He laments that socially constructed barriers to unselfconscious music making, such as musical elitism and technological requirements (which lead to complexity) cause exclusion.
Listening to great music performed by great performers is an immensely valuable human experience which Mithen suggests even connects us with our evolutionary history. It just shouldn't replace singing or otherwise participating in music. There are lots of good reasons to seriously study music, but serious or not, great or not, we should all do some music-making.
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