One of the great joys at the start of University term time is the return of the choir to the 10.30am Parish Eucharist. As well as enjoying the wonderful anthems and choral Mass settings, they support the congregation in hymn singing, along with the uplifting accompaniment of the Metzler organ. The choir and organ are a cornerstone of our services and the Anglican musical heritage we enjoy. They share in the leading of worship, not only on Sundays, but at many community events, and at some of the most significant moments of people’s lives too.

We may appreciate the transcendent beauty of the performance, the thoughtful planning of the music programme, and the hard work that goes into rehearsal but, in a world where music education and the arts are critically underfunded, and public singing has become an increasingly marginalised pastime (save a few exuberant outbursts at football matches), why do we persist in singing when we gather as Church?

In Why We Sing (2023), Julia Hollander explains that one of the social functions of singing is to promote group bonding, and research in 2015 identifies this trend as the ‘ice breaker effect’. It shows that singing groups bond with a rapidity unmatched by other activities and the bonds members form in the early stages of singing together, may be more powerful too. Singing also helps new members integrate swiftly, and sustains a sense of self-reported closeness and wellbeing among even large groups. All this is before we consider the positive impact of the texts and theology we learn and affirm through singing, or the physical benefits, in addition to the mental wellbeing it promotes.

So as we gather at the beginning of term to sing a new song (or perhaps an old one with renewed enthusiasm!), we can be confident that, not only are we lifting our hearts and voices to heaven individually, but we are helping to lift one another’s spirits too.

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Hollander, J., Why We Sing: A Celebration of Song,(London: Atlantic Books, 2023)

Pearce, E., Launay, J., and Dunbar, R.I.M., The Ice-breaker Effect: Singing mediates fast social bonding, in The Royal Society of Open Science (October 2015, Volume 2 Issue 10)