Community Singing in America

Where do Americans sing?  Footballs fans ( a few) will sing the National Anthem.  Baseball fans sing at the seventh inning stretch.  Soccer fans (other than American) sing all the time.  Fans at concerts sing a popular song or two, but only when invited to do so. Kids sing in school, usually in music class or choir.  I have lost touch with what kids sing in school these days.  Do families still sing on car trips, or are all the family members engaged with their own ear buds?

And who would be considered the greatest American song-leader of my lifetime?  My first thought was Mitch Miller.  His TV show "Sing Along with Mitch" made him a household name from 1961-1964.  My second thought was Cliff Barrows. As song leader for the Billy Graham Crusades he lead millions in song for over 60 years.  Of course, I couldn't betray my Winona Lake roots by not mentioning Homer Rodeheaver, even though he was from an earlier time (1910-1930).

In 1977 I won my church denomination's national song leading award.  That's right, I was a nationally recognized church song leader by the time I was in 10th grade.  I remember that there were rules to follow.  You had to announce the song as hymn number, not page number, because hymnals frequently had more than one hymn per page.  You had to introduce the song with some meaningful remarks that were clear, but not to long.  Handling the transitions between hymns was a big deal.  And if you had the congregation stand to sing, you had to remember to ask them to be seated at the end.  You could hold the hymnal with one hand and conduct with the other, or put the hymnal on the pulpit and conduct with both hands, which was recommended for larger groups.

At some point churches went from having song leaders to having worship leaders.  The emphasis moved from the song to the response to the song.  And it is now preferred that you not "wave your hands in the air" but use them to play an instrument, preferably guitar.

Yesterday I did a performance at a retirement home with the Dayton Accordion Band.  In that group, we still do sing alongs.  I've only recently taken over the role of song leader with the group.  Now I lead singing while wearing a rather large accordion.  This isn't easy.  But it was instinctive to give the group cues for coming in and cut offs at the end of songs.  The group sang, by memory, some of the same songs they used to sing with Mitch Miller.  And they love singing patriotic numbers like America, the Beautiful.  But this generation sang those songs together in school.  They had a shared communal musical experience.

I wonder if there will be any kind of sing alongs in 20 years.  Will people feel comfortable singing in public? Will they have any shared songs?  I was surprised last year at my daughter's wedding.  At the end of the reception she and her friends all joined together and belted out a rousing rendition of ...wait for it... Piano Man.  That song was released  about ten years before they were born.  I don't think they knew all the verses, but they enjoyed singing the chorus.  And, yes, there was alcohol involved.

Thoughts from the Adele NBC Special

1)  Adele's audience can sing!  I don't know if the soundtrack for the TV special was enhanced, but when they sang along, the audience sounded like a choir.  They had internalized nuances of pitch, tone, timbre and inflection and reproduced them with stunning cohesion.  Remember, this was an unrehearsed, unconducted performance.  The human mind has an amazing ability to record and reproduce music.  And this ability is very normal and common.  Adele's audience was not a trained choir.  They were just a group of music lovers who were able to get tickets to the show.

2)  I'm always looking for music that unites, rather than divides.  While my wife and I were watching the show she commented that "Everybody likes Adele."  While I know that this is not completely true, it is true enough.  The interesting part is that, at least in our household, Adele's appeal is multigenerational.  My wife, daughter, and granddaughter all like it.  It does not, however, appeal to both genders equally.  Neither I nor my sons are big fans.

How is the "Everybody likes Adele" affect achieved.  The Wall Street journal published an interesting article on the formula for producing music with emotional appeal.  There are several techniques including appogiaturas, harmonic tension and release, and controlling expectation and surprise.

"When the music suddenly breaks from its expected pattern, our sympathetic nervous system goes on high alert; our hearts race and we start to sweat. Depending on the context, we interpret this state of arousal as positive or negative, happy or sad.emotionally intense music releases dopamine in the pleasure and reward centers of the brain, similar to the effects of food, sex and drugs. This makes us feel good and motivates us to repeat the behavior.

Measuring listeners' responses, Dr. Zatorre's team found that the number of goose bumps observed correlated with the amount of dopamine released, even when the music was extremely sad. The results suggest that the more emotions a song provokes—whether depressing or uplifting—the more we crave the song."

To read the article click here.