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A meta-analysis of 400 music studies found that listening to music has the ability to reduce anxiety, fight depression and boost the immune system.

The latter three categories (Solace, Diversion and Discharge) are all ways in which individuals can use music to regulate negative emotions.

hear the silence – every song starts from silence. Remind your choir. Ask them to stand in silence and focus on the sounds they can hear from outside the rehearsal room (wind, cars, children playing, dogs), then ask them to re-focus on the sounds from inside the rehearsal space (breathing, creaking floor, shuffling, throat clearing, doors banging).

sing the same note and disappear – choose a note that everyone can sing comfortably in the same octave for quite some time. Get everyone to stand very close together facing different directions. Mix the usual parts up. Everyone starts to sing on an ‘aw’ as a sustained drone. Tell the singers that after they’ve taken a breath they need to gently ease back into the overall sound. Ask them to match the quality and volume of all those around them. Tell them that you want them to disappear into the sound so it’s not possible to tell who is singing what.

stop conducting – one problem with a choir can be that the singers become so used to someone standing in front of them conducting that they stop taking responsibility for themselves and start to believe they can’t do it without that person guiding them. Without telling the choir, start a song off, gradually stop conducting, then walk off and listen. There will be an initial blip probably, but then they’ll manage fine and begin to listen more to each other. Repeat the exercise, but just give the starting notes and tell them they all have to begin together but without you bringing them in.

"Composition is slowed down improvisation," and both disciplines deal with the same challenge — how to organize and present ideas in a coherent fashion.

One of the most common misconceptions about jazz is that it is spun out of the air in a totally impromptu manner. This notion exists because many small jazz groups do not read music when they play. The truth of the matter is that what those musicians are actually doing is spontaneously creating a very sophisticated form of theme and variations

The framework is flexible so that the soloists may shorten or lengthen their improvisations depending on the inspiration of the moment. The other players, then, have a responsibility to react to what has preceded them