
Struggle taught pianist to depend on God
PARKER, Colo. — For much of his adult life, Gordon Bauer…
Keith Lancaster, a cappella “musicianary” and founder of the vocal group Acappella, sent us a link from the Huffington Post about the possible medical benefits of choir singing.
“People ask me, ‘You are with the Church of Christ. You don’t believe in having a choir?'” Lancaster told us. “My response is, ‘The entire church is our choir.'”
“I thought this article was interesting about the benefits of choir singing — which would apply to vibrant, congregational singing when everyone participates,” he said.
From the report:
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Members of an a cappella group from the Lusaka Central Church of Christ in Zambia rehearse for a performance during the Africans Claiming Africa for Christ conference in 2012. (Photo by Erik Tryggestad)
Whether it’s an a cappella group or the church chorale, a small new study shows that singing in a choir could do a lot for your state of mind.
The findings, published in the journal Psychology of Music and conducted by researchers at Abant Izzet Baysal University in Turkey, show that singing in a choir is associated with decreased levels of anxiety.
The study included 35 people who were assigned to either one hour of choir singing, or one hour of “unstructured time” (the control group). Researchers analyzed their positive and negative affect, as well as their levels of anxiety and salivary amylase (amylase is an enzyme that is often used as a marker for inflammation).
Researchers found that the participants assigned to sing in the choir had decreases in their negative affect and anxiety, compared with the control group. Meanwhile, the control group experienced more anxiety and negative affect before and after the hour period.
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Here are a few more videos, featuring a cappella worship and choral singing from around the globe.
May they decrease your levels of salivary amylase.
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I also counsel for a Church of Christ camp in Kansas, and you cannot beat the singing at night out under the stars. No need to ask if somebody with an instrument can play the song. Instead, you just sing and sing and sing to God, four parts, goose-bumps. God has to love it! The others just don’t “get it”!