Meet gemma turner:
singer, educator, researcher

1. Singing is good for you mentally and physically. Listening to it, but most of all, doing it. I know this through my own performance experience and from student feedback. Singing has long been used by humans as a healing tool but we also now know its therapeutic value through scientific and medical research. Singing helps people with a long list of health issues. It is now classified as cardio-vascular activity. It can aid recovery from breathing and speech difficulties as well as psychological and neurological problems. It is also being used as a preventative tool for a large range of problems from postnatal depression to dementia. And the beauty of it is you don’t have to be good at it in order to get these benefits.

2. Once you learn to sing, it is for good. Like riding a bicycle, once you’ve learned to sing, that skill never goes away. Although like bike riding, you might need to train up muscles and fitness at some stage to do it really well or to come back to it after a long break (which is where singing coaching comes in). Learning to sing is good long-term investment.  It can be your a tool that you can use as you see fit - either to build a professional career or as a key to wellness and happiness at any life stage.

3. Singing together is good for creating community. As well as reducing the stress hormone cortisol, it increases the bonding hormone oxytocin. So group singing makes us feel better in ourselves but also that little bit more comfortable with each other while helping us remember and exchange culturally important information.  It is no coincidence that singing is central to the cultural systems of the world’s First Nations peoples. We, humans, have been singing together for millennia and for good reason!