Short Stuff: Does singing make you happy?

**Josh** (0:04)
Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. Josh here, Chuck here, Jerry here, Dave here, and Spirit at Short Stuff. Sorry, it's Short Stuff.

**Chuck** (0:14)
Yeah, I'm going to start this one by telling a quick little story of last year, I got in my Instagram feed for a little while, these choirs, these choral singing groups that were, you know, it's kind of a thing now where it's not like, oh, you know, we go to the church and it's an official choir, but like, hey, my friend has a warehouse space, and we can put a piano in it and just put out a call to see, like, people want to show up and sing together.

**Josh** (0:42)
Like humanist choirs?

**Chuck** (0:44)
Is that what it's called?

**Josh** (0:46)
That's what I'm calling it.

**Chuck** (0:47)
Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, just because, yeah, humanist episode. I got you.
Yeah, exactly that. And, you know, they're doing like a cool radio head song or something like that, or whatever, you know, Christmas music around the holidays. And I was like, you know what, man? I sang in a choir growing up in my church. And Emily and I both sang, she sang in Cho Choir. And like, we both got a lot out of those experiences. And I haven't done it since I was a teenager. And I was like, man, we got a piano. And I bet you we could get a group together to come around and do this kind of thing. And I was, I still might do it this year, but I never got around to it. But it was something that was really kind of on my list.

**Josh** (1:26)
So are you going to do it, though, you think?

**Chuck** (1:28)
Well, I really want to do it.

**Josh** (1:30)
Okay, we'll do it.

**Chuck** (1:32)
Yeah, I do want to, because I think, you know, I would be the facilitator, but I would get someone who's like, somebody's got to lead the show, because I can't do that. But I'll sing and I'll put, you know, I'll provide the space and the piano.

**Josh** (1:44)
Okay, there you go. I think that's a good start.

**Chuck** (1:46)
I think it would be fun, like a neighborhood deal. And a long way of sort of getting around to this idea that they've kind of learned that singing is good for you and specifically singing together like in a choir.

**Josh** (1:59)
Right. Yeah, that's a big thing. And Chuck, if you did get a choral group together, you guys would be the 250,000 and first chorus group in the United States because that's how many are in there.

**Chuck** (2:11)
Yeah.

**Josh** (2:11)
Something like almost 29 million people regularly sing in a choral group in the United States and it's the most popular of all arts related participatory activities. Yeah. It's more popular than cross country painting and charades leagues combined.

**Chuck** (2:31)
You know, interestingly, I saw a study the other day where they found one participatory activity helps stave off dementia more than any other and it was dance.

**Josh** (2:43)
Oh, I believe that.

**Chuck** (2:44)
Yeah, because the movement and all the benefits of doing a participatory activity plus the benefits of the exercise and everything, but it was something about dance that, and it was like kind of off the charts and like how good it was for you to do as like as you age.

**Josh** (3:00)
Sure, you get your troubles, come on, get happy.

**Chuck** (3:03)
All right, so let's talk about singing though, because like if you get together with a choir, obviously everyone there is probably going because they like to sing and they're probably pretty good at singing. But you can just go to your local karaoke bar as evidence that like people love to sing who can't sing at all sometimes and they will do that in front of other people and people will like still watch that and be interested.

**Josh** (3:25)
For sure, yeah. People will watch other people who can't sing sing. Yeah.
And then people who can't sing will sing in front of other people and feel good about it. Like karaoke is a great example of like the fact that this exists. There's something about singing, including singing in front of other people that actually does give you a positive vibe.

**Chuck** (3:47)
Yeah.

**Josh** (3:48)
So you said something though. I mean, like you can sing at home in the shower. You can sing at home on the couch. You can sing at home in the kitchen.

**Chuck** (3:57)
Sing in the car, for sure.

**Josh** (3:59)
Sing in the car. You could sing in the laundry room. Right. Like you can sing basically anywhere by yourself. And yes, there are benefits as we'll see, but because there's something about singing in a group, as we'll kind of unpack, it's just, it provides greater benefits. But if you do sing in your laundry room, you're still going to get some benefits from it. But if you've got a group of people to sing with you in your laundry room, you would be doing really good.