As part of Mental Health Month 2021, the Music Performance Unit presented a webinar titled The Health Benefits of Singing, presented by Alex Siegers. 

The webinar surveyed the various social, physical and psychological benefits of singing, particularly singing in a choir.

Recorded, Thursday 7 October 2021.

Transcript

Introduction – 0:00 – 6:53

Alex Siegers: Hello everybody, welcome to our session for Mental Health Month, this is The Health Benefits of Singing. My name is Alex, and I am joining you from the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation, who are the traditional custodians of the land, from which I am joining the webinar today. I would also like to pay my respects to elders both past, present and extend that respect to other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who are joining us today.

So, I think this is a great chance for everyone to find their chat feature. The option for the chat should be located at the bottom of your screens, and let everyone know where you are joining from today, if you are joining also from Gadigal land or from wherever you are in Sydney or Australia.

[Reading the chat responses] Hello from Sydney we've got a few people chiming in. Someone from Perth from the Noongar nation. long way away, thank you for joining us.

You can also change your chat settings from ‘Host and Panelists’ to ‘Everyone’. There's just a little drop-down menu above the chat box, so that everyone can see your comment.

[Reading the chat responses] Someone from the Gubbi Gubbi land up in Queensland. It is wonderful to have you all here today.

This event is brought to you by the Music Performance Unit at UNSW, as part of UNSW’s Mental Health Month program. It's supported by Strategy 2025 funding, that is dedicated to enhancing UNSW’s support for students and enhancing student mental health.

So, now that we have got the housekeeping out of the way, I'll quickly introduce myself, some of you do know me already, but many of you do not.

My name is Alex Siegers. I am the Music Engagement Assistant at UNSW and when I'm not working at UNSW (and sometimes when I am) I'm a singer and music educator. So, I studied a Bachelor of Music in jazz at Conservatorium of Music in Sydney and I studied a Bachelor of Arts in linguistics. I sing with the Choir of James’ King Street regularly as an Alto, I perform for Musica Viva in Schools with The Marais project, performing early music and renaissance music to primary schools around the country, and many of the things that I'm going to be talking to you about today are things that I've observed in my work as a musician and as educator, but I'm going to dig down into some of the science that backs up a lot of the stuff that I think many of us already know is true; that singing is really powerful.

And to start things off, I am just going to share a little video with you. This is from a project I did with Sydney Philharmonia Choirs a few years ago.

[VIDEO: Singing Feminist Anthems with Sydney Philharmonia Choirs]

Alex Siegers: So, I hope that got you into the mood. For those of you who have just joined us, welcome to The Health Benefits of Singing. Feel free to let us know what Indigenous land you're joining us from in the chat and just before we move on, I will let you guys know that there is a Q&A button, or function, also found in that menu down the bottom, and if there are any questions that come up during my talk feel free to pop your question there in the Q&A, and at the end we'll have some time to go through and answer all of your burning questions.

Choral Participation in Australia and in the Community – 6:53 – 11:13

So, a bit of context. When I was researching for this talk, I contacted the Australian National Choral Association about the statistics that we have on choir participation in Australia. Anecdotally, we know that there are over 1000 members of ANCA and many of them are community choirs. In 2012, there were 152 Sing Australia groups across Australia. So that, with 1000 choirs (and we're assuming at least one person in every choir) we know that there are thousands of people involved in singing around the country.

And there are several government initiatives to support new community choirs and I really hope that is sustained in the future, because singing in choirs not only benefits us individually, but a whole community, which I will talk about a bit more, as we continue.

So, because singing is so accessible, group singing has become the number one community activity in Victoria (we don't have statistics for the other states), but I imagine it's probably quite similar across the rest of the country, obviously COVID restrictions, notwithstanding. Additionally, participating in singing activities is generally quite sustained, so there was some research coming out of America, from Chorus America, that showed the average length of membership with a choir is five and a half years, and that ranges from less than a month to 50 years. I know that there are some members of groups like Collegium Musicum Choir at UNSW which have had members for coming up 30 years now, so it's definitely - once you're in some people are really in.

Similarly, Chorus America estimated that there were 54 million adults and children who regularly sang in the USA from their 2009 research. And I imagine the percentages are probably pretty similar for Australia, but we just don't have that data; similarly in Europe millions and millions of Europeans singing every year.

And in addition to that, we know that of these choral singers in our community, nearly 20% of them say the choral singing has helped relieve or improved some of their chronic health conditions and that those who participate in these choirs have fewer physical limitations than general public of the same age. Additionally, they've reported that it makes them feel less lonely and we're going to be getting into that into more detail, as we go on today.

So, to help me get to know all of you a bit better, our producer Alice, who is in the wings, is going to send through a short poll for you, asking whether you are a member of a choir, if you have previously been a member of a choir or, if you are not currently a member of a choir (obviously current COVID restrictions, make it difficult, but assuming that that is going to very soon be a past memory).

[Reading from the poll results] So, it's looking like.a large percentage of you - I've got 64% 65% of you - are currently singing in choirs.19% of you have previously sung in choirs and 17% of you are not singers, so that's more than I was expecting. Hopefully after this chat you will be chomping at the bit to be joining a choir.

[Reading from the poll results] Wonderful well, thank you for that - there we go final results, I’ll share those with you. 65% are currently in choirs, 18% were previously in choirs and 17% of you are not in a choir. Fascinating stuff, but interesting division and feel free to elaborate in the chat.

Music and Language – 11:13 – 12:53

So, where do you begin a talk on choral music? Well, I thought I should briefly go back to the beginning.

Greek philosophers were among the first in Western culture to speculate about the effects of music on our body's chemistry and on our feelings. Singing is something that we can all do; it is the oldest and only ubiquitous form of music creation across time and cultures. Singing plays a central role in our lives and shared community experiences, and this has been true for every culture for as far back as we can trace human ancestors.

There are a few theories about the development of music, and singing, and language - one of the most striking that I came across in preparing for this talk today was that music predates language, or at least developed from the same proto-language or proto-music.

Some evolutionary theorists argue that it was musicality that allowed hominids to developed what is known as the social brain. That is, by creating a shared emotional experience and increasing members’ pro-social behaviours - group singing supported complex social networks. So, singing in choirs is what helped us develop into the society that we are today, which I think is pretty remarkable.

Survey of Webinar Content - 12:53- 13:36

So, now we're going to quickly scope through the benefits of singing in a choir that we're going to cover in the remainder of this chat. I'm going to look at some of the physical benefits of singing, so the benefits to our respiratory health, our cardiac health, our immune health, as well as our neurological benefits.

Well, that slide’s disappeared, I also am going to talk about the social benefits the way that it benefits us socially and the way it benefits us psychologically, which is similar but slightly different.

The Social Benefits of Singing – 13:37 – 29:32

So, starting off, going to look at the social benefits of singing. Group singing helps us forge social bonds and it does so particularly quickly compared to other group activities, making it the perfect icebreaker, and the perfect way to bond social networks, which is particularly valuable in today's often alienating world where lots of our social interactions happen online.

I don't know about you, but most of my closest friends are people who I have sung with, whether it was during school, at university, or as a professional.

This is a quote from Professor Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary psychologist from Oxford University - our ability to make music and our continued making of music in groups is fundamental to our ability to hold together large communities, which I think is quite profound and a pretty strong argument for continued music education and music participation in our society.

So, there have been a lot of studies which have utilised various methodologies to determine the social benefits of singing in groups and these various studies - I've read through a few, a bunch, of different ones - and this is what I have found: that singing in groups increases self-confidence, empowerment, wellbeing, and interpersonal skills; it imbibes people with a sense of joy and accomplishment; and lowered feelings of social isolation, depression and anxiety; increased social capital through participation in social, cultural and community activities; as well as denser social and friendship networks. So, it is a hugely important thing for our society.

So, now I'm going to share with you another video - this is from the PBS show titled Music Instinct and it is looking at the musical brain as the social brain. I will just cue that up for you all.

[VIDEO: The Music Instinct]

Alex Siegers: Okay, so, looking at the neurological differences - just zooming in on that picture that they showed us in that clip, and we can see the differences neurologically between when we're singing alone, which is that way, versus when we're singing with the guitar, which is the second one. So, in the brain scans when they were when Joe was singing with the guitar, the parts of his brain that are lit up relate to phrasing, cognitive work and emotional work.

So, there's a need for reciprocity, empathy and the part of the social brain gets switched on, when you are performing with someone else as opposed to when you are singing by yourself and this effect is mirrored; it will be mimicked in social, I mean, apologies, in choral singing. So, you're engaging those, that empathy/social part of your brain when you are singing with other people versus when you're singing by yourself.

This is another study that was done, looking at the social benefits of group singing. This is a study from, called Sing Up in the UK, investigating the correlation between social inclusion and singing ability, and what they found was that singing ability was related to the connection that they felt in class. So, the better they were singing the more socially included they felt; the worse they were at singing, the less socially included they felt. So, if we're having a look, they green line is the schools that participated in the Sing Up programs, and the blue is the schools that didn't participate in this Sing Up program. So, even though there was a difference between the students who felt more socially included, to less socially included - the schools that didn't participate in the Sing Up program at all, so the ones who didn’t do singing, the blue lines, were all lower down. So, even if they didn't feel as included because they weren't as good at singing, they were still doing so much better than the students that weren't singing at all! Which I think is a really powerful insight. This study was replicated again in Italy in the Musica Region Emilia-Romagna in this study one year later - the children who took part in the choral program were followed up with, and they were still reporting higher levels of social inclusion, one year later than those who didn't take part in the choral program, which I think is really powerful as well.

I think this is a chance for me to ask what your experiences with music education were. You can just type in the chat. Give me a number one if your singing was a big part of your education; a number two if you sang, but you didn't sing at school or at university - you had to go and find your singing elsewhere; or three if you didn't have many opportunities to sing growing up. [Reading from the chat] A couple of ones, a couple of threes, couple of twos and threes. Lots of ones, which is great to see.Hopefully going forward we have fewer threes, more opportunities to sing for young Australians is what we are hoping for. This is great. I'm so glad to see how many of you had music interwoven into your educations.

[Reading from the chat] Oh, there we go, someone said that singing was compulsory at all schools in Switzerland. Imagine that in Australia - everyone having to sing!

Oh, this is great. Now I'm just going to share another video with you, and that was from one of the schools that participated in the Sing Up program. This is at Wells Cathedral in the UK.

[VIDEO: What I love about being a chorister]

Alex Siegers: So, that was a little bit of an ad for Wells Cathedral, but I think it really captured how much joy all the students got out of singing, especially in a beautiful Cathedral like that.

So, in this part of the Sing Up study, Cathedral choristers went out to primary schools to encourage the primary school children to sing, and the children who experienced singing with the choristers had: the strongest engagement with singing and also the highest social inclusion score. So, these are some of the outcomes: highest attitudes to singing, strongest reported engagement with singing, and also the highest social inclusion score. So, incredibly important, and [Reading from the chat] obviously as Leigh has just mentioned, the current situation, which has prohibited us from singing together, has obviously had huge implications because of that loss of social connection - great point Leigh.

So, just to bring this back to my experiences, things like the Sing Up program is something that's done in some of the choirs that I perform with. On the left is on the Choir of St James’ with the St James’ Singers. I believe there are some people from St James’ Singers is joining us this afternoon. So, the professionals, the Choir of St James, join in with the Singers as a positive experience for them to model and learn off The Choirs of St James’. It's a fantastic experience. I always love singing with the Singers and I often find that it’s a really positive experience for them.

Similarly, at the Choir of St Mary's Cathedral, where I sing occasionally, they have the boy trebles from the high school and from the primary school, and then they have the men Lay Clerks. And the boys, the young boys learn, they get thrown in the deep end with the professional singers and they have to learn, by doing, for the most part, but they all seem to thoroughly enjoy and it's a fantastic education model as well.

And then also, similarly, at Collegium Musicum Choir, we have the students who are studying the Bachelor of Music course interspersed between other singers from around the university to help build their musical literacy and also building social cohesion throughout the campus, as a unique opportunity to bring together staff, students and community members.

If you do have questions do pop them into the Q&A so that I don't lose them before the end of the chat. You can find the Q&A function just in the menu at the bottom and just pop your questions in there, so that I can make sure I don't miss anything when we get to questions at the end.

Well, I'm just going to, now, I'm just going to play an audio file it's from the Clean Slate Without Prejudice program, run by Tribal Warrior, which is based in Redfern where I live.

They started off as a boxing program getting kids off the streets, working with Redfern Police, but they've been teaching the kids the Biyal Biyal language which is this Redfern language and in 2019 and 2020 I worked with them, and my colleague Josephine Gibson, to write short songs in language.

And this is a part of the program on getting the kids out of trouble with the police, building community and building a real sense of identity with the kids, so this is just a short clip of the kids singing one of the songs that they wrote in their morning session.

[SOUND CLIP]

So, this kind of work is being replicated in lots of great organisations around the country. I know that Moorambilla Voices based out in Western NSW are doing great work with aboriginal language and music and Marliya group up in Cairns. It's a really powerful tool, socially, to empower our Australian Aboriginal children.

Lullabies – 29:32 – 33:05

Moving on, I was recently introduced to the importance of lullabies by a friend of mine as a social cohesion tool. She runs a podcast called Lullaby the First Steps collating lullabies from around the community and around the world, teaching people how to sing them.

This is important in looking at the social benefits of singing because listening to a mother singing is one of the first experiences we ever have of singing as an infant and it rouses their attention, and it includes lots of physical and emotional responses. You know, infants are mesmerized by their mother's infant-directed singing, and it has an immediate and profound impact on the children. And despite the children not understanding the language or the linguistics involved, lullabies are universal, and they are also recognizable in virtually every culture on earth.

And it's been observed that singing development in fact begins pre-birth, which is quite remarkable - the sound of the mum's voice is conducted through the bones, and the mother’s emotional state is then encoded in her bloodstream which is shared with the fetus. So, when the baby is born, they already have experience of hearing things, particularly the mother's voice. So, the fetus is getting an acoustic message paired with an emotional tagging of that sound in the blood. Which means that the baby enters the world already recognizing, and being programmed that certain sounds have a certain emotional valence; that is, sounds are happy or sounds are sad and that is regardless of ethnic group or language or culture.

And next I've got a video, another video, also from that PBS show that we saw a video from earlier, which is looking at the importance of lullabies sung even before the child has been born.

No, I'm, not because it is an unsupported file format according to oom.

[VIDEO: The Music Instinct]

Physical Benefits – 33:05 - 49:27

Alex Siegers: So, pretty incredible stuff. Moving on from the social benefits, which are many and faceted, to the physical benefits which are equally as remarkable and wide reaching.

I was a bit overwhelmed by the mountains of research in this field when I began to research for this talk, but I've just summarized it into a few key areas.

So, singing exercises the brain, as well as the body. It's particularly beneficial for improving breathing posture and muscle tension and both listening to and participating in choral music has been shown to be effective in pain relief and triggering the release of endorphins.

Respiratory Benefits – 33:52 – 39:44

There are several studies documenting the respiratory benefits of singing, which is pretty unsurprising seeing a singing is all about breath, posture and phonation, if you are doing it correctly. Or even if you're not doing it correctly, it still involves breathing in some capacity. Singing involves contracting your diaphragm to control muscles on inhaling, and controlling respiratory muscles on exhaling, and that happens, whether you're a trained singer or not, the diaphragm is automatic in its engagement.

You need to have control breathing in order to sing the next phrase, and to hold notes and to sing different pitches. And one study found that the regular practice of singing helps improve your quality of life and preserves your maximal expository pressure, which is the way they measure out the strength of respiratory muscles.

And finally, which I believe might help a few of you out there, I know it will definitely be handy for me, singers have a significantly lower Snoring Scale Score compared to non-singers. That was found in a study and they concluded that singing practice may have a role in the treatment of snoring. So, for any of you with a noisy partner like myself, set them a strong diet of singing and report back with your results.

Just to explore the respiratory benefits again, I've got another short video for you, looking at how patients with respiratory diseases have benefited from singing. I will just cue that up, right now.

[VIDEO: Sing for your lungs]

So, there are several singing initiatives, especially in the UK and the USA, which are specifically designed for people with poor lung health and one of these is the Sing for Lung Health initiative, who produced that short video that you just watched.

And so, the program aims to develop awareness of your postural and breathing patterns, learn how to change your habits through breathing, postural and vocal exercises, extending your outbreath through sung phrases, improving your respiratory strength, building physical stamina, and building vocal stamina; all achieved through singing in a choir.

Cardiac Benefits – 39:44 – 43:43

So, not all forms - there are benefits of singing to cardiac health - but not all forms of singing impact cardiac health equally. It's determined by the music sung, its tempo, its phrasing, but there is a specific type of singing which benefits our cardiac health the most - it is called toning. It slows your respiration down to almost exactly six breaths per minute, and it optimizes your cardiovascular function. Toning was also shown to improve your heart rate variability and it's also an exercise used in polyvagal theory, a form of psychological therapy, which helps people regulate their nervous system.

So, I'm going to show you a video of toning and I would encourage all of you to join along, join in and have a go at toning for yourself, if you are somewhere that is toning friendly.

Just breathe, when you need to sing whatever note you're comfortable with.

[VIDEO: Group vocal toning]

Alex Siegers: There you go, that's toning! So, you can continue that, for as long as you like, or you can just do it for a short burst to connect - Apologies my Internet just dropped out for a second there. The perks of Zoom. As we were.

The benefits of the cardiac benefits of singing. Singing songs lower your blood pressure - my blood pressure is a bit high at the moment, so maybe I should do a little bit of singing - It also benefits our immune system.

Immune System Benefits – 43:43 – 45:10

Singing in groups, whether it is professional, or amateur is shown to boost our immune system. This is a graph from a 2004 study, which shows the levels of salivary immunoglobulin A increase after singing. What is salivary immunoglobulin you ask? They are the main class of antibodies present in our body's secretory fluids (so that's our snot, our spit and mucus and our other things like that) and it's considered the first line of defense from environmental factors, and when you sing our immunoglobulin is increased.

Now, this is the case for professional singers as well, so, even if you are singing every day as a professional singer, singing continues to elicit an immune response, it doesn't, it's not something that wears out over time.

So, these results suggest that singing in a choir can positively influence both our emotional affect and our immune competence, it is maybe the next step in our fight against COVID! Maybe I should let our health minister know.

Neurological Benefits - 45:10 – 49:27

So, we've moved on, we've got our respiratory health, our cardiac health, our immune health, and now neurological health.

Singing, especially singing in an ensemble, utilises the modularity of our brain So, these are some screenshots looking at the results of a study of an adult who has just started singing lessons, you can say there's a lot of brain activity so they're thinking a lot about doing the activity. But when you compare it to the brain scans a year after singing lessons, there's a shift to something which is far less conscious and a shift to something which is a lot more imagery driven,, and a shift to the more musical centres of the brain, and far less thinking of the language and thinking about the actual task. So, singing does impact the way that we use our brains.

And the part of the brain that researchers are most interested in when it comes to seeing is called the Arcuate Fasciculus. It's that top point there if you want to look at how that word is spelled. So, it runs around either side of the head in the shape to be like a hair grip over the top. And so, the important thing about the Arcuate Fasciculus, is that it connects the two hemispheres of the brain - so, the language centres are more biased to your left-hand side and the more prosodic features, so pitch and rhythm, more processed on your right-hand side. And Arcuate Fasciculus links the auditory areas with the motor areas of the brain, which is implicated in the processing of language, vocal pitch, and singing in tune.

And so, the results of this study that you are looking at right now demonstrates that if you took slices of the Arcuate Fasciculus of non-musicians, instrumentalists, and singers, singers have a much more developed Arcuate Fasciculus than the general public and also than instrumentalists.

So, the human voice, particularly pays attention to this part of the brain and the two hemispheres of a singer’s brain is more connected by a larger part, then the rest of our community.

So, this is a, looking here at a study that compared the singer, a healthy musician, a singer on your left and a healthy non-musician on the right, so you can see, there is a difference in the relative size of these areas.

And as you begin to use certain parts of your brain more they are enhanced and become bigger, and this is a part of the brain that is used a lot in singing. But, for example, violin players, we know there's been research done about this have a part of their brain dedicated to the tips of their fingers on their left hand, and the that part of their brain is much larger compared to non-violin players, because that's the part that they are constantly using, and this has implications for neuroplasticity as well, showing that our brain continues to change and grow as we age, through singing.

This is just a photo of me and my mum. Hi mum, if you're watching. We went and sang at my grandparents' retirement village where some of the more able retirees singing for those in the nursing home, getting everyone singing in the nursing home, regardless of how old they are, there are still neuroplastic benefits to all who are involved.

I do recommend going and singing at your local retirement home, nursing home, once it is safe to do so. There are several groups that do this, and it is a really rewarding experience and something that the residents usually love. Also, with Christmas coming up it's a fantastic opportunity to get singing.

Psychological Benefits – 49:27 -51:59

I'm going to whiz through the last little bit of this because we are rapidly running out of time.

Psychological benefits. There are many documented psychological benefits in singing. It triggers dopamine, and that's how we feel pleasure. Choral singers report higher scores of positive mood, personal growth, vitality, and sense of purpose. And in four out of five patients with dementia, singing has proven to be an effective therapy stimulating the memory. There's some fantastic research going on down at the University of Tasmania about singing and dementia, which I am keeping a close eye on.

There was a study done in 2006 that showed people participating in weekly community programs expressed less loneliness, had fewer trips to the doctor, and used few up medicines, than the control groups.

Singing in a choir equals a reduction in cortisol. So, you can see here that little red line on the graph shows the rapid reduction in your stress hormone before and after singing. So, people arrive to choir rehearsal with higher cortisol levels and 40 minutes later after singing that it has reduced, and they are relaxed.

Another study showing that singing is better at doubling your oxytocin, which is your social bonding hormone, than it is just talking to people. So if you want to really up your oxytocin levels, the thing to do is sing with your friends rather than just talking to them. That might be a useful thing for anyone running rehearsals with particularly talkative choristers - let them know that actually they'll bond better with their friends if they sing with them, rather than talking.

This was mimicked in another study that showed 20 minutes of singing compared the choir singing and solo singing, improved - the choral singing improved the social bonding effects and the hormone released in participants brains.

Listening to choral music – 52:00 – 55:55

And finally, what about listening to choral music?

For those of you who can't sing, especially at the moment, listening is as close as many of us can get to singing. You are in luck, because singing - listening to music triggers a dopamine response.

The dopamine response occurs, both before and while listening to music - so anticipation of listening to your favorite recording of The Sixteen, or the King Singers, or whoever your guilty indulgence might be, is the same as actually listening to it.

As well as singing, listening to music elicits physical responses, such as increasing heart rate, respiration, and decreases in temperature and your blood volume pulse amplitude.

Listening to music also impacts our brain - this image shows centres deep within the brain that light up when you listen to your favorite music. And that's the part of your brain that's associated with reward. So, that part of your brain lights up when you win the lottery, when it's your birthday, or when you listen to the Choir of King's College Cambridge singing Allegri Miserere (that’s if you’re me).

That's the same thing, whether it's a record recording or whether it's a live concert, and I am strongly anticipating my return to the concert hall over these next few months, as we open up again in Sydney. For those of you in Queensland, Perth and Adelaide, I hope you are reaping the benefits of the concert hall.

Finally, music for pain relief. Listening to music has been documented to help with pain relief and the treatment of chronic pain so that's not singing, that is listening. Impacts of pain relief apply whether a person has had any musical or training or not. And these effects are amplified when the music, that is being listened to is music that the participant likes. So, it has effects on our hormonal system and is a powerful pain relief strategy. So, this is a video I'm going to show you about research into the effects of listening to music.

If you if you give me one moment, I will cue that up.

[VIDEO: Brain networking among musicians]

Conclusion and Q&A - 55:55 – 1:02:27

Alex Siegers: So, first of all, after all of that, what can you do to reap the health benefits of singing in your life? Well, first and foremost join a choir. We run a large choir here at UNSW called Collegium Musicum Choir, which is open to all. Or you can look up your local parish choir, your local community choir, or music group. I know that many of you have been trading choir tips in the chat as we've been going on today, which has been fantastic.

But failing that, and while we're under certain COVID restrictions here in Sydney anyway, sing in the car, sing in the shower, try out some toning while you're waiting in the traffic lights, to help calm your - slow your breathing rate and slow your heart rate.

I strongly believe that it benefits us, both as individuals and as a community to normalise and promote music co-creation, but I don't need to tell all of you that.

So, this is just a little snapshot of the student support options for UNSW students who are in the audience, please do take a screenshot of the slide so that you can access any student support services. It is Mental Health Month at UNSW.

My colleague Alice is just going to pop in the chat a feedback form which we are collecting as part of Mental Health Month, so if you could complete that feedback form, we would really appreciate that. I'll also email it out to everyone, afterwards, with the link, in case it gets lost in that chat, for those of you who would rather complete the feedback form later.

[Q&A]

Thank you so much for all your questions. I've thoroughly enjoyed presenting to you this evening, I hope you can all go out and spread the good word about the benefits of singing from in all aspects of our life as individuals and as a community find your local choir and join it if you haven't already.

And the Music Performance Unit are hosting a few other events later on in the month for Mental Health Month and also for Diversity Fest so do check out our website to find those, and I think that is everything - I am going to end the call in 321. Good evening everyone.