What the pandemic couldn't take away: Group singing benefits that survived going online

A choir in Mount Vernon, Washington, United States made international headlines in March of 2020 when epidemiologists studying the rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2 began to document the viral aftermath of one of its weekly rehearsals. Responding to mounting evidence from the scientific community, people across the globe simply stopped singing in groups. With the goal of illuminating which rewards survived when virtual group singing replaced live group singing in this watershed year, this author launched a survey on November 25, 2020. The participants, 204 English-speaking respondents from North America, the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, included professional and amateur, religious, and secular singers participating in process- and performance-oriented singing. The limitations of platforms such as Zoom left many participants frustrated, but several benefits of virtual group vocalization survived or surfaced: singing with those far away, a greater sense of democracy among inhibited and more confident singers, the freedom to do household chores while rehearsing, and a sense of inter-group cohesion. In addition, the more isolated or otherwise limited the respondents felt, the more important virtual opportunities were. Those most dissatisfied with virtual group singing appeared to be the ones for whom live group rehearsals posed the fewest challenges. This chapter synthesizes and discusses the broad range of responses from singers who both participated in live group singing during the three months before March 31, 2020 and in virtual group singing after that date. For many, group singing was too important to postpone during the COVID-19 pandemic.