I do not know what it is that has prompted me to put fingers to keyboard this morning.

Maybe it was the kind encouragement of a couple of choristers at last night’s rehearsal.

Maybe it is starting to prepare the same music which the Choir was rehearsing when I joined eighteen years ago.

Or maybe it was the article in the current edition of Peninsula Living, espousing the benefits of singing in a community choir.

The latter item refers to the usual mix of “scientific” studies which supposedly prove the claimed benefits of singing.  I have never needed convincing.  Having sung in choirs for most of my life, I simply know that singing in a choir is good for you.

Perhaps most tellingly, there was a time when I had a particularly stressful job, and setting off for choir practice (a round trip of 60km in an English winter, possibly through rain, hail, snow, black ice and fog or any combination of these) was the very last thing I wanted to do after dinner on a Tuesday evening.  But I always went.  I had to go, as I was transport for one of those most valuable of commodities, a First Tenor, who did not drive.  I figured that if it ever came to auditions, they would have to pass me, as if they did not, they would also lose a First Tenor.  Whatever the motivation, without fail I always felt better on the return journey, buoyed up and positive for the rest of the week.

Last week I was part of a conversation about individualism versus collaboration.  Which produces the better society?  There are arguments both ways.  The competitiveness of individualism often drives invention and economic progress.  But collaboration produces social cohesion, a common purpose and sense of looking after each other.  That is what singing in a choir engenders above all else.  We all know our own part, but we are also aware of what everyone around us is doing, and we work together to produce the best possible result.

For my money, singing in a choir is a microcosm of a better life, and as such it’s worth its weight in gold.