The virtuoso girls I'll never forget

So many memories have resurfaced as I write my book. This one hit hard.

The summer I turned 15, I loaded my cello onto a bus and took a day’s journey from my hometown of Ottawa to a music academy in Charlevoix, Quebec.

Aruna Anantaraman at 15, after winning the Edythe Young Browne Trophy for top marks in violin. Photo: Courtesy Anant Anantaraman

Aruna Anantaraman at 15, after winning the Edythe Young Browne Trophy for top marks in violin. Photo: Courtesy Anant Anantaraman

As the bus lumbered along the St. Lawrence River, I gazed out the window, willing it to go faster. I couldn’t wait to be reunited with musicians from my youth orchestra, and maybe get pointers from an international soloist or two. 

After the sweltering ride, I lugged my cello past a cluster of weathered buildings to the girls’ dormitory. I saw many familiar faces as I unpacked my things. But the bunk beds were filling up fast, with no sign of our principal violinist, or her whiz-kid sister from the second violins. Strange. Normally they’d be there.  

I called out, “Where are Rupa and Aruna?”

The room froze. Everyone stared. 

“Didn’t you hear?” one of the girls said at last. “They died in the Air India crash.”  

The room of faces blurred before my eyes. Dazed, I shook my head. “No way,” I said. The terrorist bombing had been all over the news. But Air India Flight 182 had departed from Montreal—not Ottawa. Rupa and Aruna couldn’t have been on board.  

If only that were true. 

The two sisters had traveled to Montreal to catch the flight. On June 23, 1985, the bomb exploded while the passenger jet was in mid-air, sending the bodies of all 329 people—Aruna, Rupa and their mother, Bhawani, too—hurtling into the Irish Sea.

A cellist from my orchestra filled me in. “One of their violin cases was found floating in the wreck.”

Oh, God. I felt nauseous, sickened by the news. Everyone must have been talking about it for weeks. But I had kept myself scarce all summer, avoiding my expectant mom. Nine days before I left for music camp, she gave birth to a baby sister in my parents’ bedroom. I’d spent my days working for a family friend, stacking boxes in her clothing warehouse and wiping the dust off her orange tree, leaf by leaf.  

I didn’t know how to explain my ignorance of the tragedy to the girls in my orchestra. While everyone else filed out for dinner, I just stood there, stunned.

I couldn’t believe I’d never see Rupa and Aruna Anantaramana again. We’d played together in the National Capital String Academy every week for more than two years.

I got the feeling she was enraptured by the music, and wanted to sweep everyone else away too.  

Aruna was my age, studious and wildly talented. Music took up most of our free time, but we always smiled at each other during rehearsals. I had a soft spot for little Rupa, too. The youngest in our group, just 11 years old, she followed her big sister like a duckling.

Aruna had impeccable technique on the violin, but I never thought about the mechanics of bow strokes or hand positions when she played. I got the feeling she was enraptured by the music, and wanted to sweep everyone else away too.  

Rupa was fast on her heels, displaying a talent some described as “almost Mozartian.”

Their father, Anant Anantaraman, and mother, Bhawani, came to every concert, every Saturday afternoon rehearsal. Their lives seemed to revolve around music out of sheer joy.   

Music, it turned out, was the idea behind the Air India flight.

Music, it turned out, was the idea behind the Air India flight. Their mother was taking them to India to give her family a chance to hear her daughters play. Their father, a scientist in the Department of National Defence, stayed in Ottawa for work.

I could hardly imagine his horror. He lost his entire family in a flash of light.

Months went by.

The following spring, I performed in the Kiwanis Music Festival—my first competition. Shaking with nerves, I stammered my way through the Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto. Nevertheless, the judges gave me top marks, and declared me the winner of the Edythe Young Browne Trophy for strings. But where was the prize?

“Wait here,” one of the festival organizers said.

I waited so long that volunteers in the auditorium began to stack up the chairs. Then, from a far corner of the room, a man walked up to me holding a golden cup the size of a punch bowl. His eyes were sunken, and his hair was pure white. Startled, I realized he was Aruna’s father. The last time I’d seen him, his hair was black. 

I stared at the hunk of gilded metal in his arms. Aruna must have won the trophy the previous year. I didn’t know what to say. He handed it to me, not saying much either. Then he gave me something else: a photo of Aruna, radiant and beautiful, holding the golden cup near her face.

I thanked him, my face burning.  

Me at 16, holding Aruna’s trophy a year after I won the prize. Photo: Russell Barton

Me at 16, holding Aruna’s trophy a year after I won the prize. Photo: Russell Barton

The trophy collected dust in a corner of our house for a year until it was my turn to pass it along. At the last minute, my stepfather convinced me to pose for a photo in the park down the street. “We should document this,” he said. I squinted in the sunlight, gripping the trophy with a forced smile.

I still have the photo of Aruna holding the same cup, brimming with happiness, two months before she fell from the sky.  

Thirty-five years have passed since the Air India bombing, the biggest mass murder in Canada’s history. Two of the kindest, brightest girls I’ve ever known will be forever listed as victims of terrorism. This saddens me now more than ever.

During this brutal pandemic, hundreds of thousands have died—of opioid overdose, police violence, COVID-19. I cannot say their names. There are too many to remember. Instead, I’ve found myself shedding fresh tears at the thought of Aruna’s warm smile, and the little red jacket Rupa used to wear. My grief takes me aback. After all, it’s been years. But this is a cleansing pain, searing through the numbness that comes from reading so many names, on so many lists.

Aruna and Rupa’s names are engraved in the Air India Memorial in Toronto, in Humber Bay Park East. Photo: Artur / CC BY-SA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)

Aruna and Rupa’s names are engraved in the Air India Memorial in Toronto, in Humber Bay Park East. Photo: Artur / CC BY-SA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)

Last month, I searched for news of Aruna’s father, wondering what happened to him. I read about the music scholarships he set up in his daughters’ names, and the foundation he established in honour of his wife.

Then something dawned on me: His gift to me of Aruna’s photo that day might have been a first step in making sure his family was never forgotten.

Years after the crash, Dr. Anantaraman founded a tuition-free school in southern India for children in need. The school offers hot meals and high academic standards, emphasizing the values of tolerance and peace. “I was searching for a reason to live, any little straw, any little twig, to give a point to my life,” he told a reporter.

Working with children helped him cope with the loss of his family, especially his daughters, he said.

“Aruna and Rupa, to me are still 15 and 11. They never grew up. They are just the way I saw them the last time, so beautiful, so innocent, wonderful, and talented, playing their Bach and Vivaldi.”

That’s how I will always picture them too. 

In memory of Aruna and Rupa Anantaraman.

Postscript: Last month I got in touch with Dr. Anantaraman, now in his 80s, to ask his permission to publish Aruna’s photo. We hadn’t spoken since I was a teenager, and I didn’t want to add to his pain. To my relief, he welcomed my letter. In his twilight years, he wrote, hearing from a friend of his daughters brought vivid memories, and “moments of tearful joy.”

‘Binaural beats’ debunked: These apps offer cool marketing, but iffy health effects

Optical illusions mess with how we see things. “Binaural beats,” a type of auditory illusion, mess with how we hear things—and may play tricks in other ways, too.

Photo credit: Darekm135 / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)

Photo credit: Darekm135 / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)

An odd thing happens when you listen through headphones to two steady tones at slightly different frequencies, one in each ear. You start to hear a low beat that sounds like it’s coming from inside your head. But this third sound is just a figment of your brain’s auditory system. A phantom pulse.

What’s up with that? Scientists have known for decades that our brainwaves tend to synchronize, or “entrain,” with the rhythms we hear. In theory, slightly mismatched tones may confuse the brain. If one ear picks up a tone at 550 Hertz, while the other hears 558 Hertz, the brain will perceive a third frequency—binaural beats—at the points where the sine waves bump together.

Researchers haven’t fully studied binaural beats, let alone the possible health effects. But that hasn’t stopped an overkill of apps from marketing them as “digital drugs” with the power to relieve migraines, sharpen mental focus and blast away stress.

Even Bayer, maker of Aspirin, promotes binaural beats as “good vibes” for relaxation on its Austrian website.

So far, however, the evidence of any health benefits is thin.

So far, the evidence of any health benefits from binaural beats is thin

The latest study to poke holes in the hype comes from an international team led by scientists at the Montreal-based Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research.

In the study, published this week in eNeuro, healthy adults wore head caps with electrodes for monitoring brainwaves using electroencephalography (EEG).

First, they listened to a series of binaural beat frequencies. Next, the same volunteers listened to frequencies mixed on a computer to create a third beat before the sound reached the ears. In this case, the third beat was part of the audio mix (and not an illusion).

After each session, the listeners rated their levels of mental relaxation, alertness and feelings of absorption in the experience.

The researchers found that binaural beats did entrain the brain—but not as much as the premixed beats. What’s more, neither had any effect on mood. A previous study, published in 2017, reached similar conclusions.

This didn’t surprise me. The mood-boosting effects of music, based on a large body of research, stem from the brain’s pleasure and reward response to our favorite sounds. Binaural beat apps use computer-generated frequencies, many of which sound only vaguely like music.

The Montreal study, to be fair, involved just 16 participants and listening sessions of eight minutes each. Chances are this study won’t put the nail in the coffin for binaural-beat diehards.

Whether binaural beats can cause a “high” remains debatable, but the power of suggestion can be intense

Digital drugs have a cult following online. Teens have posted YouTube videos of themselves “getting high” on audio tracks. Reviewers on iDoser’s website have raved about the trippy experiences they’ve had. Whether binaural beats can cause a “high” remains debatable, but the power of suggestion can be intense.

And some studies have shown possible benefits. A 2018 analysis of 22 studies concluded that binaural beats may help lower anxiety and offer modest pain relief.

Behavioral studies, however, tend to search for specific effects, such as relaxation. This approach can bias the results, noted Joydeep Bhattacharya, a cognitive psychologist who has studied the neuroscience of music. Binaural beats, he said, in an interview with Discover magazine, “raise a lot of flags.”

The few studies that have used brain imaging to understand what’s happening during binaural beats have produced inconclusive results, he pointed out. “That gives you a good indication that the story is more complicated than many of the behavioral studies want to convince you.”

Until more research is done, our best bet might be to see this phenomenon as a quirk of our gray matter—a bit of mischief from the proverbial ghost in the machine.

Disclaimer: Discussions about health topics provided in this blog, or in any linked materials, are not intended and should not be construed as medical advice, nor is the information a substitute for professional medical expertise or treatment. The author accepts no responsibility or liability for any health consequences relating to information published on this blog.

The secret behind fast-paced music, AKA the “legal performance enhancing drug”

You’ll never find a silent spin class—let alone Zumba. Fitness instructors intuitively know that peppy music puts a spring in our step.

Now we have science to prove it.

Is music giving her the edge? Runner with headphones at Marathon Rotterdam 2015. Photo credit: Peter van der Sluijs, Wikimedia Commons

Is music giving her the edge? Runner with headphones at Marathon Rotterdam 2015. Photo credit: Peter van der Sluijs, Wikimedia Commons

In a new study in Frontiers in Psychology, fast-paced music made exercise easier—and helped women work up a sweat.

For the study, a small group of volunteers exercised either in silence, or to pop music at three different tempos: 90 to 110 beats per minute (bpm), 130 to 150 bpm, or 170 to 190 bpm.

Some of the women walked on a treadmill, while others did leg presses. During each session, sport scientists recorded the women’s heart rates and asked them to report how much effort their workouts required.

“Listening to high-tempo music while exercising resulted in the highest heart rate and lowest perceived exertion”

After crunching the numbers, the researchers noticed a trend:

“Listening to high-tempo music while exercising resulted in the highest heart rate and lowest perceived exertion,” said Luca P. Ardigò, a sport scientist at the University of Verona, Italy.

The effect was greatest for women on treadmills, compared to those using weights. The takeaway: Exercisers doing endurance activities, such as walking or running, may get the biggest bang from upbeat music.

The study’s sample size was tiny—19 women total—and didn’t include men. Nevertheless, the findings echoed a recent systematic review from the University of Southern Queensland in Australia.

The Australian researchers combed through 139 studies on music in exercise and sport—in both men and women—and came up with four key findings:

  1. Music makes exercise more enjoyable

  2. Music reduces perceived effort

  3. Music improves physical performance

  4. Music increases blood flow and reduces the oxygen intake needed to exercise at the same intensity without music

“No one would be surprised that music helps people feel more positive during exercise,” said Peter Terry, dean of graduate research and innovation at the University of Southern Queensland. But, he added in a news release, “the fact that music provided a significant boost to performance would surprise some people.”

Faster music—at least 120 beats per minute—offered more benefits than slower music

Like the Italian study, Terry and colleagues found that faster music—at least 120 beats per minute—offered more benefits than slower music.

What’s more, exercising to the beat offered the greatest gains.

Music has been described as a “legal performance enhancing drug.”

How could this be? Human brainwaves tend to synchronize with any steady tempo we hear, including brain regions involved in core functions such as heart rate, breathing and blood pressure.

Tunes for training: author Costas Karageorghis, professor of sport and exercise psychology at Brunel University London, explores evidence-based practices in his 2016 book

Tunes for training: author Costas Karageorghis, professor of sport and exercise psychology at Brunel University London, explores evidence-based practices in his 2016 book

So, if you want a leg up in your next triathlon or 10K, try listening to fast-paced tunes. But first, check the rules: Some competitions discourage, or even ban, the use of portable music devices for safety and performance reasons. The Boston Marathon allows headsets, “except for those participants who declare themselves eligible for prize money.”

Playlists arranged by tempo are easy to find. (A 120 bpm playlist on Spotify kicks off with the Glee favorite, “Don’t Stop Believin’.”)

Just don’t crank up the volume. Noise levels at indoor cycling studios often reach 100 decibels or more—enough, with repeat exposure, to cause long-term hearing loss.

Wear earplugs, ask the gym to turn the music down (or take your business elsewhere).

Disclaimer: Discussions about health topics provided in this blog, or in any linked materials, are not intended and should not be construed as medical advice, nor is the information a substitute for professional medical expertise or treatment. The author accepts no responsibility or liability for any health consequences relating to information published on this blog.

One of the masterminds behind the Italian Renaissance was a mystical musician dubbed the “second Orpheus”

Household names like Leonardo da Vinci get all the credit for sparking the 15th-century explosion of art and science. But there’s more to the story.

One of the masterminds behind the Italian Renaissance was neither a painter, nor a wealthy Medici, but a depressive priest who self-medicated with music.

Without this enigmatic figure, named Marsilio Ficino, we might not have Botticelli’s “Primavera” or “The Birth of Venus.”

Sandro Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus,” painted in 1483-1483, explores classical themes championed by Marsilio Ficino. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Sandro Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus,” painted in 1483-1483, explores classical themes championed by Marsilio Ficino. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), shown in a fresco painted by Domenico Ghirlandaio in the Tornabuoni Chapel, church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence

Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), shown in a fresco painted by Domenico Ghirlandaio in the Tornabuoni Chapel, church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence

I stumbled across Ficino while doing research for my book.

Born in 1433, Ficino was a frail man with pensive eyes and a humped back. But Florentine intellectuals learned not to judge him by his looks, for he had the mind of a genius and the voice of a demigod. They called him the second Orpheus.

Ficino had a gift for reading Greek, at a time when ancient philosophy was making a comeback. He was the first to translate Plato’s entire works into Latin, making them available to a wide audience through Gutenberg’s new printing press.

Ficino coined the term “Platonic love”—bosom buddies without benefits—and revived core ideas from the ancient world. Before his death in 1499, Ficino became one of the most influential scholars in all of Europe.

It helped to have friends in high places. Ficino had the ear and financial backing of Cosimo de’ Medici, titan of the powerful Medici dynasty. Later, Ficino became chief tutor to Cosimo’s grandson, Lorenzo de’ Medici.

Trained by Ficino to appreciate the arts, Lorenzo supported master painters such as Sandro Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci. He even invited the young Michelangelo to live with his family at the Palazzo Medici.

Scene of Ficino’s entourage celebrating neo-Platonic wisdom around a bust of Plato. Oil on canvas entitled, “The Parental of Plato,” by Antonio Puccinelli (1822-1897). Here, “parental” means “influence.” Photo: https://villegiardinimedicei.it/villa-…

Scene of Ficino’s entourage celebrating neo-Platonic wisdom around a bust of Plato. Oil on canvas entitled, “The Parental of Plato,” by Antonio Puccinelli (1822-1897). Here, “parental” means “influence.” Photo: https://villegiardinimedicei.it/villa-di-careggi/

Scholars have argued that Ficino, more than anyone else, summoned the return to beauty in the Italian Renaissance

Together, they mingled in a circle of poets and intellectuals led by Ficino. Themes from Greek and Roman mythology, championed by Ficino, appeared in the masterpieces of Michelangelo and Botticelli.

Did Ficino have a direct hand in their work? No one knows for sure. But Ficino tended to rhapsodize about Venus, describing her as a transformative force for the human soul. The voluptuous goddess became the central figure in Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus,” as well as “Primavera.”

That’s not all.

Ficino was the New Age guru of his day. A trained physician, vegetarian and ordained priest, he melded Catholicism and Greek philosophy with a dash of pagan ritual.

His mystical teachings drew artists and scientists from miles around to a sprawling estate in the hills outside Florence. In a castle-like villa that still stands at Careggi, Ficino headed a centre of learning modelled after Plato’s ancient Academy.

Set in a garden of orange and olive trees, this Medici villa doubled as a healing retreat, specializing in Ficino’s esoteric music therapy. (Today, we’d call it “woo-woo.”)

Villa Medici at Careggi, Florence. Site of the neo-Platonic Academy headed by Marsilio Ficino, who died here in 1499. Photo credit: I, Sailko, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7430861

Villa Medici at Careggi, Florence. Site of the neo-Platonic Academy headed by Marsilio Ficino, who died here in 1499. Photo credit: I, Sailko, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7430861

An enchanting male voice beckoned visitors to an inner chamber perfumed with frankincense.

There, seated near a bust of Plato, Ficino would strum a lyre (a U-shaped harp) while singing the Orphic Hymns—sacred texts uncovered in Constantinople (Istanbul).

Modern historians have dated these texts to around the start of Common Era. But Ficino believed them to be magical incantations penned by the demigod Orpheus himself.

In the famous Greek myth, Orpheus poured his anguish into his lyre after losing his bride, Eurydice, to a fatal snake bite. Hades, King of the Underworld, was so touched by the grief-stricken songs that he allowed Orpheus to return his wife to the world of the living, on one condition: he must walk in front of her and not look back. But Orpheus snuck a peek and lost Eurydice forever.

Ficino, taking cues from the Greeks, regarded illness as a form of discord between the soul and the heavens. Like Plato before him, he saw music as the ticket to inner harmony. 

For patients with low moods, Ficino recommended melodies that evoked the mellow or upbeat planets: Venus was soft and yielding. Mercury vigorous and gay. With practice, Ficino said, music could open one’s spirit to the gifts freely offered by the heavens.

“We play the lyre,” Ficino wrote, “precisely to avoid becoming unstrung.”

Bust of Marsilio Ficino by Andrea Ferrucci, in the Cathedral of Florence, Santa Maria del Fiore. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Bust of Marsilio Ficino by Andrea Ferrucci, in the Cathedral of Florence, Santa Maria del Fiore. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Ficino himself suffered bouts of depression. “We play the lyre,” he wrote, “precisely to avoid becoming unstrung.”

(Numerous studies have shown that music really does improve depressive symptoms. But astrology has nothing to do with it.)

Ficino’s unique blend of music, mysticism and medicine captivated Italy’s brightest minds

Ficino’s unique blend of music, mysticism and medicine captivated Italy’s brightest minds for decades. After centuries of dogma about inescapable sin, Ficino offered something fresh: a sensuous Catholicism in which art, music, fragrances and original thought ignited love in the human soul, amplifying love for God.

Scholars have argued that Ficino, more than anyone else, summoned the return to beauty in the Italian Renaissance.

But the tides turned.

At age 64, Ficino saw Dominican friar Savonarola’s “bonfire of the vanities” destroy thousands of exquisite costumes, books, artworks and musical instruments.

In this assault on beauty, wrote Ficino scholar Angela Voss, “the brilliant vision of Florentine Platonism itself was hurled into the depths of Hades by the forces of ignorance and fear.”

Ficino died two years later. His fascination for the mythical past fell out of fashion. And his heavenly voice—unlike Botticelli’s paintings—was forever lost.

Sources

Biographical details and scholarly achievements:

Celenza, Christopher S., "Marsilio Ficino", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2017/entries/ficino/>.

Description of Ficino’s physique and inner sanctum at Careggi:

Walker, D.P. Spiritual and Demonic Magic: From Ficino to Campanella. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000.

Ficino’s influence on Renaissance art and philosophy:

Michael J. B. Allen and Valery Rees, eds., with Martin Davies. Marsilio Ficino: His Theology, His Philosophy, His Legacy. Leiden and Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2002. 

Snow-Smith, J. The Primavera of Sandro Botticelli: A Neoplatonic Interpretation. New York: Peter Lang Inc., 1993.

Kristeller, P. The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino. New York: Columbia University Press, 1943.

Also see writings of the late Clement Salaman, editor of a 7-volume translation of the letters of Marsilio Ficino (previously unpublished in English).

Ficino’s Renaissance music therapy and Orpheus nickname:

Voss, Angela. “Marsilio Ficino, the Second Orpheus.” In Music as Medicine: The History of Music Therapy Since Antiquity, edited by Peregrine Horden, 154-172. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000.

Ammann, Peter. “Music and Melancholy: Marsilio Ficino’s Archetypal Music Therapy.” In Florence 98, Destruction and Creation: Personal and Cultural Transformations: Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Congress for Analytical Psychology, edited by Mary Ann Mattoon, 118-129. Daimon, 1999.

Source of “Florentine Platonism hurled into the depths of Hades” quote:

Voss, Angela. “Orpheus Redivivus: The Musical Magic of Marsilio Ficino.” In Marsilio Ficino: His Theology, His Philosophy, His Legacy, edited by Michael J. B. Allen and Valery Rees, with Martin Davies, 227-241. Leiden and Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2002.

Music to cope with cognitive decline

There’s a lot of talk right now about music and Alzheimer’s. Especially in the wake of Alive Inside, the 2014 Sundance hit about nursing home residents who “wake up” after a social worker gives them headphones to listen to Schubert or the Shirelles. 

But it seems we're just beginning to tap into music’s potential to help people with cognitive decline.

Gracia Seal (centre) and St. Andrew's Regional High School students Jessica Coady(left), Claire O'Neill and Mari Chambers on percussion, practice with the Voices in Motion intergenerational choir project led by University of Victoria researchers. Ph…

Gracia Seal (centre) and St. Andrew's Regional High School students Jessica Coady(left), Claire O'Neill and Mari Chambers on percussion, practice with the Voices in Motion intergenerational choir project led by University of Victoria researchers. Photo credit: Suzanne Ahearne/UVic

I wrote a Globe piece last week about a new choir in Victoria, B.C., which teams up people with dementia, their caregivers and high school students. Researchers behind the project, called Voices in Motion, are studying whether singing in a choir can reduce depression, loneliness and stigma, and improve mental functioning.

This isn't just a “fill out a questionnaire and tell us how you feel” study. Choir members with dementia, as well as their caregivers, consented to monthly tests to measure their emotional states, cognition and physiological markers such as gait and grip strength.

In the study’s pilot phase, the researchers found a lowering of depression in choir participants, and a slight bump in their mental functioning.

Music isn’t a silver bullet. It cannot cure, reverse or halt the mental decline that comes with Alzheimer’s. But here’s what singing in a choir can do:

  • Combat loneliness, at a chemical level: Singing with others increases levels of oxytocin, the “cuddle hormone” that gives us warm fuzzies and makes us feel less alone. Loneliness is so harmful to overall health that researchers are calling it “the new smoking” – equivalent to sucking back 15 cigarettes a day. 

  • Harness memory centres undamaged by dementia: Memory isn’t just a matter of recalling what we ate for breakfast, or where we left the keys. We also have semantic memory (general knowledge of the world), procedural memory (the skill to remember motor tasks such as riding a bike), emotional memory and other kinds stored in different parts of the brain. Music recruits multiple memory centres at once, allowing choir members with dementia to recall new songs one week to the next.

  • Improve mood, and possibly mental functioning: Singing or listening to music stimulates the brain’s pleasure centres. Enhancing mood reduces depression, freeing up valuable brain resources, according to the researchers behind the Victoria choir. Choir members in the pilot study showed slight improvements in their ability to remember words from a list. They had the same brain damage from dementia, researchers said, but got more mileage from cognitive resources they had.

Dr. Stuart MacDonald, a University of Victoria psychologist involved in the study, described music a “super stimulant” for the brain.

And unlike dodgy "brain supplements" sold online, music is cheap, enjoyable and side-effect free.