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The ice-breaker effect: singing mediates fast social bonding Open
It has been proposed that singing evolved to facilitate social cohesion. However, it remains unclear whether bonding arises out of properties intrinsic to singing or whether any social engagement can have a similar effect. Furthermore, pre…
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Dopamine modulates the reward experiences elicited by music Open
Significance In everyday life humans regularly seek participation in highly complex and pleasurable experiences such as music listening, singing, or playing, that do not seem to have any specific survival advantage. The question addressed …
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What works for wellbeing? A systematic review of wellbeing outcomes for music and singing in adults Open
Aims: The role of arts and music in supporting subjective wellbeing (SWB) is increasingly recognised. Robust evidence is needed to support policy and practice. This article reports on the first of four reviews of Culture, Sport and Wellbei…
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Singing in a silent spring: Birds respond to a half-century soundscape reversion during the COVID-19 shutdown Open
Songbirds reclaim favored frequencies When severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic lockdowns were instituted across entire countries, human activities ceased in an unprecedented way. Derryberry et al. found th…
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Exhaled respiratory particles during singing and talking Open
Choir singing has been suspended in many countriesduring the Covid-19 pandemic due to incidental reportsof disease transmission. The mode of transmission has been attributed to exhaled droplets, but with the exception of a study on tubercu…
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Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of community singing on mental health-related quality of life of older people: Randomised controlled trial Open
Background As the population ages, older people account for a greater proportion of the health and social care budget. Whereas some research has been conducted on the use of music therapy for specific clinical populations, little rigorous …
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Lively Ethography Open
This article is an effort to dwell with the kinds of writing and thinking practices that we have been developing in our research, especially over the past seven years. This is an approach grounded in an attentiveness to the evolving ways o…
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Male mice song syntax depends on social contexts and influences female preferences Open
In 2005, Holy and Guo advanced the idea that male mice produce ultrasonic vocalizations (USV) with some features similar to courtship songs of songbirds. Since then, studies showed that male mice emit USV songs in different contexts (sexua…
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The neurochemistry and social flow of singing: bonding and oxytocin Open
Music is used in healthcare to promote physical and psychological well-being. As clinical applications of music continue to expand, there is a growing need to understand the biological mechanisms by which music influences health. Here we e…
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Mechanisms underlying the social enhancement of vocal learning in songbirds Open
Significance Social interactions are fundamental to the acquisition of speech and language; therefore, it is critical to reveal mechanisms of social influences to understand general mechanisms of vocal learning. Like humans, songbirds lear…
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Scientists on Twitter: Preaching to the choir or singing from the rooftops? Open
There have been strong calls for scientists to share their discoveries with society. Some scientists have heeded these calls through social media platforms such as Twitter. Here, we ask whether Twitter allows scientists to promote their fi…
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Comparing aerosol concentrations and particle size distributions generated by singing, speaking and breathing Open
The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has resulted in an unprecedented shutdown in social and economic activity, with the cultural sector particularly severely affected. Restrictions on musical performan…
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Reviewing the Effectiveness of Music Interventions in Treating Depression Open
Depression is a very common mood disorder, resulting in a loss of social function, reduced quality of life and increased mortality. Music interventions have been shown to be a potential alternative for depression therapy but the number of …
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Singing modulates mood, stress, cortisol, cytokine and neuropeptide activity in cancer patients and carers Open
There is growing evidence that psychosocial interventions can have psychological benefits for people affected by cancer, including improved symptoms of mental health and wellbeing and optimised immune responses. However, despite growing nu…
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Effect of singing interventions on symptoms of postnatal depression: three-arm randomised controlled trial Open
Summary This study assessed whether a novel psychosocial intervention could reduce symptoms of postnatal depression (PND) in the first 40 weeks post-birth. Analyses were carried out of 134 mothers with symptoms of PND randomised into 10 we…
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How Do Music Activities Affect Health and Well-Being? A Scoping Review of Studies Examining Psychosocial Mechanisms Open
Background: This scoping review analyzed research about how music activities may affect participants' health and well-being. Primary outcomes were measures of health (including symptoms and health behaviors) and well-being. Secondary measu…
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Light pollution alters the phenology of dawn and dusk singing in common European songbirds Open
Artificial night lighting is expanding globally, but its ecological consequences remain little understood. Animals often use changes in day length as a cue to time seasonal behaviour. Artificial night lighting may influence the perception …
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Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 by inhalation of respiratory aerosol in the Skagit Valley Chorale superspreading event Open
During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, an outbreak occurred following attendance of a symptomatic index case at a regular weekly rehearsal on 10 March of the Skagit Valley Chorale (SVC). After that rehearsal, 53 members of the SVC among 61 in …
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DiffSinger: Singing Voice Synthesis via Shallow Diffusion Mechanism Open
Singing voice synthesis (SVS) systems are built to synthesize high-quality and expressive singing voice, in which the acoustic model generates the acoustic features (e.g., mel-spectrogram) given a music score. Previous singing acoustic mod…
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How Two Brains Make One Synchronized Mind in the Inferior Frontal Cortex: fNIRS-Based Hyperscanning During Cooperative Singing Open
One form of communication that is common in all cultures is people singing together. Singing together reflects an index of cognitive synchronization and cooperation of human brains. Little is known about the neural synchronization mechanis…
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A systematic review of mental health and wellbeing outcomes of group singing for adults with a mental health condition Open
The current results indicate that group singing could be a promising social intervention for people with mental health conditions. However, these studies had moderate to high risk of bias. Therefore, these findings remain inconclusive and …
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Why go to pop concerts? The motivations behind live music attendance Open
Recent technological innovations have facilitated widespread illegal downloading of recorded music. While this points towards a decreased willingness to pay for music, the increase in the popularity of live music suggests otherwise. This i…
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Uses and Perceptions of Music in Times of COVID-19: A Spanish Population Survey Open
Since March 14, 2020, Spanish citizens have been confined to their homes due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Participating in musical activities has been associated with reduced anxiety and increased subjective wellbeing. The aim o…
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A Community Choir Intervention to Promote Well-Being Among Diverse Older Adults: Results From the Community of Voices Trial Open
Objectives To test effects of the Community of Voices choir intervention on the health, well-being, and health care costs of racial/ethnically diverse older adults. Method Twelve Administration-on-Aging-supported senior centers were cluste…
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The effects of mother–infant singing on emotional closeness, affect, anxiety, and stress hormones Open
Among mammals who invest in the production of a relatively small number of offspring, bonding is a critical strategy for survival. Mother–infant bonding among humans is not only linked with the infant’s survival but also with a range of pr…
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What is the impact on health and wellbeing of interventions that foster respect and social inclusion in community-residing older adults? A systematic review of quantitative and qualitative studies Open
PROSPERO registration number CRD42014010107.
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Epidemiologic Evidence for Airborne Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 during Church Singing, Australia, 2020 Open
An outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection occurred among church attendees after an infectious chorister sang at multiple services. We detected 12 secondary case-patients. Video recordings of the services show…
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Sex and stress: Men and women show different cortisol responses to psychological stress induced by the Trier social stress test and the Iowa singing social stress test Open
Acute psychological stress affects each of us in our daily lives and is increasingly a topic of discussion for its role in mental illness, aging, cognition, and overall health. A better understanding of how such stress affects the body and…
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Singing Together, Yet Apart: The Experience of UK Choir Members and Facilitators During the Covid-19 Pandemic Open
The Covid-19 induced United Kingdom-wide lockdown in 2020 saw choirs face a unique situation of trying to continue without being able to meet in-person. Live networked simultaneous music-making for large groups of singers is not possible, …
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Jukebox: A Generative Model for Music Open
We introduce Jukebox, a model that generates music with singing in the raw audio domain. We tackle the long context of raw audio using a multi-scale VQ-VAE to compress it to discrete codes, and modeling those using autoregressive Transform…