WHY WE SHOULD SING

Most people agree singing isn’t only for entertainment—it’s good for you physically, too. You can find long, scholarly essays arguing the point. But it’s hard to beat the charm and blunt practicality of the “Reasons briefly set down… to persuade everyone to learn to sing,” published by William Byrd in 1588 in his Psalmes, Sonets, and songs of Sadnes and Pietie.

Byrd’s case for singing, in today’s words, goes like this:

1. It’s easy to teach and quick to learn—if you have a good teacher and a willing student.
2. Singing is naturally enjoyable, and it helps preserve a person’s health.
3. It strengthens the chest and opens the pipes (in other words: helps the voice and breathing apparatus).
4. It’s a remarkable remedy for stuttering and stumbling in speech.
5. It improves pronunciation and helps make someone a strong speaker.
6. It reveals whether nature has given you a good voice—a rare gift, “not one in a thousand”—and prevents that gift from being wasted through lack of training.
7. No instrument compares to human voices when the voices are good and well blended.
8. The better your voice, the better it is for honoring and serving God, which is the highest use of the human voice.

And Byrd ends with a simple wish, basically:
If singing is this good for us, he’d like everyone to learn to do it.