Singing: Key to Human Development
Vocal music is a foundation for your language, community and health
The inborn ability to sing evolved in our ancestors well before speech. Language develops from singing capacity. Singing improves relationships, communities and health.
You may find it hard to believe that much of the world’s woe could disappear if people would accept that they have to sing. Yet to make song is a basic human instinct. It is a foundation of language development, of social relationships and personal health. Singing is potentially one of your most powerful means of human fulfilment.
According to research, a million or so years ago our ancestors discovered how to control their thorax so that breath could be used to produce a sustained vocal tone on a single pitch. Thus began the history of human song.
Individuals used it to declare personal identity. Groups could bind together through songs as they worked or marched or played. They could even send information by singing. It was truly a huge step in the evolution of the human psyche. Basic singing ability became so vital to creating community that, by natural selection, it became a trait inborn in each individual. It was wired into the brain.
At some time after discovering song, people found they could combine it with the mental ability to represent objects and events. They could create signifiers using different vocal sounds, string them together using their breath control and vary the pitch of the utterances. Human speech had begun.
Yes, vocal music preceded language in human history! The capacity to speak meaningfully actually depended on singing ability. And researchers have shown that babies still learn language by using their innate musical perception and ability to sing. Even for school-age children language development is optimal through song.
So embedded in our biological nature is song music that it should have a much higher status in our everyday lives. Your family life will have a deeper foundation if you sing together often. Don’t limit it to lullabies during infancy; make it an integral part of children’s lives as they grow. And the emotional bonding can be coupled with enhanced language skills, so capitalise on this and slot in some of those songs with tongue-twisting phrases, more complex words and unusual syntax.
We are wired to sing, but the vocal skills which produce good songs are not all innate, and some of us have never been aware of the singing abilities we were born with. Basic technique involves things like appropriate posture, breath management, changing registers and attention to pitch accuracy.
If you are not used to singing or lack confidence some elementary training may be very worthwhile. Certainly beware of taking as models the everyday pop or rock singer, many of whom use their voices in ways that can (and do) cause serious injury to the larynx. Look for a professional voice teacher, or join a choir that provides training for beginners.
You learn to sing largely by discovering aspects of your body – which, after all, is the vocal instrument. And the experience of singing leads to awareness of what kinds of song you like or dislike, and sometimes of feelings and values you did not realise you had.
Singing to an audience is one of the most emotionally vulnerable situations one can enter. If you take the big step of performing you will learn much about managing your anxieties and taking command of the context in order to win the audience over. This brings self-assurance of rare depth.
In all these ways singing is a voyage of self-exploration through which you will forge a stronger, richer and more sustaining identity. Singing promotes psychological health. Add to this the valuable relationships that singers form with each other and their audiences, and you have the potential to lead a longer, healthier and more satisfying life.
Singing is essential for full human development. Remember your heritage. Voices of a million years or more of singing are echoing in your body! Hear them urging you on, drawing you in, and then sing – because you have to.
