CHAPTER FIVE Community - Walt Whitman And I engirth them. The armies of those I love engirth me I sing the body electric If someone had said to me when I took up singing that one day it would be banned, I'd have laughed out loud. Not that I was entirely blasé. I know perfectly well that freedom of expression isn't universal, especially for women. Were I living in Iran, I wouldn't be allowed to perform in front of men because clerics think it triggers immoral sensual arousal. In China there is a blacklist of songs that mustn't be used in karaoke clubs because they are deemed against the interests of national unity. But not even under these regimes did anyone ever suggest that singing was a danger to public health. Not until Covid. It was so confusing. On the one hand, the wartime spirit induced by the pandemic compelled everyone to sing. On the other, those of us who had dedicated our lives to singing were being told it was far too risky to continue. From Berlin to Washington, shockingly large numbers of singers had apparently managed to catch the virus from a single rehearsal or concert, often from just one member of their choir. Gradually people were realizing it wasn't the droplets on our hands that mattered so much as the microscopic ones going in and out of our breathing systems. I and my singing colleagues went from thinking the efficiency of our lungs meant we'd cope with respiratory disease better than most, to worrying that if we caught Covid we'd never sing again. Pretty much overnight, every concert and gig and choir rehearsal was cancelled. It felt weird but OK: better safe than sorry; things would be back to normal soon; we just had to be patient and enjoy the opportunity to stay at home and learn new material, do some solid practice... But as the weeks turned into months, I found it harder and harder to motivate myself. People were frightened, and no one was prepared to say when we might be allowed back to work. Rather than cancel another performance date or postpone another rehearsal, it became easier to shut up shop completely. For the first time since my terrible Immie silence, weeks went by without a single song passing my lips. About six months into the pandemic, a governmentfinanced piece of research came out which concluded that singing was no more likely to spread Covid than speaking. But still the lawmakers refused to allow us to do it. More months passed. By the spring of 2021, when the UK's third lockdown ended, rules were loosened and people started to crowd back into pubs and shops, necessarily shouting at the top of their lungs. Meanwhile, the more than two million members of choirs across the UK were told to keep their mouths firmly shut. The month of May arrived, drenched by showers that should have come in April and winds still blustering from March. In a corner of the local churchyard, a clutch of rebel madrigal singers gathered to sing 'Sumer is icumen in', their voices wheezing and straining from underuse. I stood and listened and wondered what kind of rebel singer I might become. CAMPFIRE June has brought the sun, and the girls and I have decided to celebrate by going camping. On a gloriously balmy weekend, our lives distilled down to three sleeping bags, bedrolls, a tent and a dog, we make our escape from our home in Oxford. Having jostled our way around a supermarket crowded with masked and nervous shoppers, we pound down the motorway with the rest of the Friday-afternoon traffic. Our destination is a south-facing field in the Chilterns bounded by ancient oak woods where we have camped with friends in the past. I've brought my guitar, but I have no idea who will be there or if people will be singing; they may feel too fearful. As I pace the flinty ground, searching for a patch smooth enough for a comfortable night's sleep, I spot a pair of red kites overhead and stop to watch them, gliding on the air currents. It is reassuring to think those birds were once almost extinct, but thriving now. As dusk descends, Bea appears at the door of the tent. 'They've lit the fire, Mum. Bring the guitar.' At the far end of the field, dark figures are outlined by the glow of the flames. I make my way over to them, skirting around a group hunkered on the grass, rugs drawn around their backs. I don't recognize anyone, but on the other side of the fire I have spotted a couple of people with guitars. My heart leaps as it recollects an old sensation, dormant for too long, that wherever live music is happening I feel at home. Not only that: the instrument slung over my shoulder is my first-class ticket to a seat on those chaps' log rather than the damp ground. Already they are beckoning to me, shunting along to make space. As I unpack the guitar I wonder if I should be observing some sort of Covid-safe distance, even though we're outdoors, even though I'm vaccinated... The man on the end smiles and hands me a bottle of beer. 'Thanks, I'm Julia.' 'Simon. This is Don.' From our elevated position on the log we can see everyone's faces lit by the flames. Most seem to be staring dreamily into the flickering light; it feels awkward to chat, being so out of practice. No one wants to discuss the misery of the past fifteen months, but we haven't yet salvaged enough of normal life to have other topics of conversation. Better just to enjoy one another's company in silence. Sociologists say that the past year has seen a pandemic not just of Covid but of loneliness. They regard it as a pathology and liken its impact to the long-term health damage of smoking fifteen cigarettes a day: a lonely person is 50 per cent more likely to die prematurely than someone who has company. With the flat of his hand, Simon is beating a solid two-time on his guitar's hollow body. '"Some people say a man is made outta mud..."' His voice rings out into the clean acoustic of the sky beyond our circle. Heads bob in recognition of the song. Don is strumming his guitar on the offbeat. Having unpacked my instrument, I bend over it, experimenting with different chords to try and find the right key, but he's leaning out to show me the shape of his left hand clenched around the neck: A minor. I catch Simon's eye; it is enough of a signal that I'm welcome to sing as well as play, joining in the chorus: '"Sixteen tons and what do you get,/Another day older and deeper in debt..."' If you don't know 'Sixteen Tons', the lyrics on the page might look pretty downbeat. But trust me, the song is not. In fact it's quite the opposite: muscular; defiant. To sing it makes me feel strong. Now I can hear other people's voices rising from across the fire. A woman to my left gets out her phone and, her face uplit by the screen, starts to try and google the lyrics. Knowing she's unlikely to get the reception she needs, I smile, encouraging her to follow along with the rest of us. Ellie and another student-aged girl in wellies and oversized coats step into the firelight close to the band, so they can lead the next verse: '"I was born one mornin', it was drizzlin' rain/Fightin' and trouble are my middle name..."' I'm busking my way through half-remembered lyrics, heading for the next rhyming couplet and the next chorus. How joyful this is, how easily the music brings us out of ourselves. On the other side of the fire some teenage lads up the volume, sending their croaky baritone voices across the blaze. The flames catch their faces from below, lending an extra theatricality to the scene as they entertain us with '"If you see me comin', better step aside/A lotta men didn't, a lotta men died."' Simon is driving us on for another full round, but his accompaniment fades to just the patter of fingers on the sounding board. Someone in the darkness starts to whistle, cutting through the softer texture of the voices. When we get to the chorus again, Ellie and I improvise a descant line above the main tune. Soon enough our voices diverge, clashing against one another, but it's fun, not knowing where we are heading, whether we will come back together or not. A fresh log gets thrown on the fire; a tornado of gold dust spirals up and with it our harmonies. High into the black, black sky. Suddenly I can't sing any more; I'm choking; my eyes smart. It must be the smoke. But then I wonder if it's my mind: the thought of those fifteen cigarettes a day. The past months have been exactly like filling my lungs with tar. Only now, by opening my throat to sing, has the gunk begun to shift. And it's painful. It makes me realize how much I've become accustomed to the deprivation. Why is communal singing so compelling? We could ask our vocal-learning cousins, the songbirds, some of whom are known by their special, collective singing names: an 'exaltation' of skylarks as they hover over grassland; or a 'clattering' of jackdaws, a 'gaggle' of geese or a 'screech' of gulls... Biologists refer to this as 'gregarious singing' and have started doing some interesting research into it. In Wisconsin, when they study the brains of starlings who sing together, they find raised levels of endogenous opioids. They have established that the birds are especially drawn to places where they can congregate and sing repertoire which is quite distinct from the songs they perform solo during the mating season. Indeed, the birds enjoy gregarious singing so much that they go out of their way to modify their individual vocal styles to blend with one another. Darwin was not deaf to this phenomenon. It intrigued him that when the mating season was over, birds continued to sing. Why? He felt sure of the survival advantages in singing solo, but what was the point in carrying on once those ends had been met, let alone altering the vocals in order to fit in? Could they be singing together simply for what the great biologist perceived as 'their own amusement'? I think there is more to it than that. Imagine for a moment you are a solitary bird: during the breeding season you are in competition with other birds for the same patch of scrubland or the same fertile female, and to this end you sing alone. It may be fun, perhaps just as fun as singing in the shower. But unlike a tiled box which safely encases you, if you are exposed up on a wire or atop a tree, it is a risky business. Your voice might easily draw the attention of a raptor, ready to pick you off. The only reason it's worth living dangerously like this is because you are hoping you'll attract the best mate and thereby produce the best progeny. But for the rest of the year, when you're not after sex, what's the point? You might as well do the opposite and choose somewhere safer. And what could be better than safety in numbers? The presence of your fellow birds spreads the load in terms of danger from predators, and therefore lowers the concurrent levels of stress and fear. It might even get you sharing other kinds of survival information, about feeding sites or weather patterns or whatever. I realize that you yourself probably don't live in fear of raptors. Nor do I. Our lives aren't filled with such dangers; but we do seem to have replaced the existential risks of singing solo with their psychological equivalent: the hawks of self-judgement and self-criticism. In my experience as both performer and teacher, a huge element of solo singing is learning to manage that sort of stress. And I'm not alone. When a couple of psychologists in Oxford interviewed 125 soloists and 125 choristers about what state of mind they associated with their singing, there was a marked difference in the responses. While singers in the choir put well-being at the top, the soloists talked about stress. Somewhere in the vocal-learning heritage we share with the birds, solo singing still feels like a risky business. Perhaps you are someone who likes singing in the shower because your voice is masked by the pounding of water. Perhaps that is your version of safety from criticism. As is a soundproofed car or a caring teacher. But safer than all these, tried and tested over many generations, is a flock of singing companions. Excerpted from Why We Sing by Julia Hollander All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
