Singing for fun and for your health: joining a choir has its perks

Shout Sister! sings Canadian Railroad Trilogy from QNet News on Vimeo.

By Casey Horn

BELLEVILLE – Whether you’re belting out love ballads together or dancing like the nuns in the 1992 film Sister Act, the research shows: group singing is good for your health.

“Every little cell in my body is well,” rings the chorus of one of the first songs on the practice roster for the Shout Sister! choir in Picton.

“I’ve had so many women in the choir tell me what this has done for them, and we’ve got women in here that have lost children, lost spouses, been through depression, there’s so many things and they’ve said they couldn’t have gotten through it without being able to sing,” said Georgette Fry, who started the first Shout Sister! choir in 2002.

Fry goes on to say that there’s a physical feeling that happens when you get groups singing together.

“When you take a person and put them in a room full of other people who are singing, I call that the ‘wow’ factor, because suddenly it’s like your voice is blending with all these others. They’ve done other studies that show that when you put a group of people in a room together, make them sing, their heart beats lock. They just line up and lock. It’s pretty powerful stuff,” says Fry.

The Picton chapter of the Shout Sister! choir practices on, Nov. 3, 2016. Photo by Casey Horn, QNet News.

And you don’t have to be Beyonce or John Lennon to reap the benefits of singing in a group. Another study says “the emotional effects of participation in group singing are similar regardless of training or socioeconomic status.”

Shout Sister! is unique in that regard because you don’t need to be able to read music or have any prior training in order to join. All you need is a voice and a desire to sing.

Fry says that her lack of official music training was her biggest concern when she was thinking about starting the choir.

“I said to one of my students, ‘I just watched this amazing movie and wouldn’t it be wonderful if I had an all-female kickass choir?’ She said, ‘Well, why don’t you do that?’ and I said, ‘Well, I can’t conduct a choir. I can’t read music.’ And she said, ‘But you’ve taught music for 13 years without having been able to read it. Don’t you think you could just take that to a bigger group?’

Fry eventually agreed to try, and from that first night with 50 people to their current 23 chapters, Shout Sister! continues to be an important part of members’ lives.

Georgette Fry of @ShoutSister1 impacting so many lives! My mind body heart soul thanks you #Sing #choir #connection #ldnont

— Christine Allison Garinger (@Chr1st1neAlly) October 3, 2016

The choir’s repertoire spans from Beatles’ tunes like Blackbird and Gordon Lightfoot’s Song For a Winter’s Night to K.D. Lang‘s Constant Craving.

Other members of the choir notice the absence when they don’t get a chance to sing.

“I miss it when I’m not here,” said Diane Magee.

Fry added “I find that if I’m starting to feel irritable, I just ask myself, when was the last time I sang something?”