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Beloved singing star reveals condition that may force early retirement

<p>Scottish singer and songwriter Lewis Capaldi has opened up about his battle with Tourette’s syndrome, admitting it could lead him into early retirement.</p> <p>The <em>Before You Go</em> singer, 26, has shared details of his condition with fans in the past, making light of it online, even going viral on TikTok for how he handles his on-stage tics.</p> <p>Speaking to The Sun, the 26-year-old revealed it is a “very real possibility” he will have to put the mic down if his condition deteriorates.</p> <p>"It's triggered by stress, anxiety, and excitement. Basically, any strong emotion, you're f—ed," Capaldi, who was diagnosed with Tourette’s in 2022, said.</p> <p>"There are times it has been really bad and I've wondered whether I can continue to do this with the stress, anxiety, and Tourette's. It all comes as a direct result of doing this job.”</p> <p>Capaldi, renowned online for his self-deprecating sense of humour and cheeky commentary, said he has worried that the crowd may mistake his tics for drug use.</p> <p>He also revealed he may have to stop making music and performing if the condition progresses.</p> <p>"This isn't drugs, and I've had that accusation on nights out. People have asked me directly, 'Are you on drugs, is it cocaine?'" He explained.</p> <p>"If it got to a point where my quality of life was drastically diminished, I'd just have to quit.”</p> <p>Capaldi’s powerhouse voice has thrown him into the mix with UK greats including Sir Elton John and Ed Sheeran.</p> <p>He said that John has been a pillar of support during his struggles with anxiety, telling The Sun that the <em>Rocket Man</em> singer emails him regularly.</p> <p>In early 2023, a clip from Capaldi’s concert made waves online after fans helped him finish the song as he experienced a tic attack on stage.</p> <p>Capaldi was singing his perhaps most famous song, Someone You Loved, at a concert in Germany on February 21.</p> <p>Audience members were quick to notice the singer struggling, so they continued the song from where he left off, with him holding onto the microphone in an attempt to compose himself.</p> <p>In 2022, Capaldi shared his diagnosis with fans on Instagram.</p> <p>"I do the shoulder twitch a lot. And you see underneath every TikTok and stuff, people are like, 'Why is he twitching?', which is fine. Curiosity is fine. I get it," he said.</p> <p>"I haven't really learned much about it. I'm learning. I've got Botox on my shoulder to stop it moving. It worked for a bit," he said.</p> <p>"The worst thing about it is when I'm excited, I get it; when I'm stressed, I get it; when I'm happy, I get it. It happens all the time.</p> <p>"Some days it's more painful than others and some days it's less painful. It looks a lot worse than it is. Sometimes it's quite uncomfortable … but it comes and goes."</p> <p><em>Image credit: Getty</em></p>

Music

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“You won’t believe it”: An a-moo-sing new addition for one Victorian farm

<p>Megan and Barry Coster, two dairy farmers from Victoria’s West Gippsland region, were given the smiling surprise of a lifetime during their latest round of calving. </p> <p>“My husband was collecting calves to bring in for the day,” Megan told ABC’s rural reporter Annie Brown. “And I think I was off with the kids at sport, and I just got this text message of this calf, and he’s [Barry] like ‘you won’t believe it’.</p> <p>“Originally when he got the calf up he didn’t notice, and then he turned around and looked on the other side, and couldn’t believe it.” </p> <p>The calf, affectionately named ‘Happy’ by the family, had been born with an award-winning grin - just not where one would expect. On his side was a very unique marking - two eyes, a nose, and a big smile. </p> <p>When asked how old Happy was, Megan explained that he had only been born three or four days prior to the discovery, and went on to add that they had a lot of calving going on, so it was a busy time for them, and likely why they hadn’t immediately noticed what made Happy so special. </p> <p>“We’ve seen some number sevens, or love hearts on the head, and a few strange markings but we’ve never seen anything that resembles a smiley face before … we’ve had thousands over the years, and we’ve never had anything like it,” Megan said. </p> <p>“I couldn’t believe it,” she went on, before admitting she’d checked to ensure none of their staff had added any of the lines to the young cow. “And then I was pretty quickly sharing it with some of my friends - none of them could believe it either.” </p> <p>Megan went on to <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/1591950161115622/permalink/3523334507977168/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">post to Facebook</a>, sharing a photo of their spectacular latest addition with the caption “the funniest marking we’ve had for a while”, to the delight of fellow dairy fans around the world. </p> <p>“They look fake! How awesome,” wrote one individual, who seemed to share Megan’s initial disbelief, “best marking I’ve seen.”</p> <p>“I guess that's his good side,” joked another. </p> <p>“Love it. That's got to be a keeper as a pet,” said one, unaware that the family had every intention of keeping Happy on a pet - though he might also have to pull his weight as a lawn mower.</p> <p>“One very happy calf,” came one declaration. </p> <p>One person hit the nail on the head when they said “this one will always put a smile on your face every time u c [you see] it.” </p> <p>Although not everyone was quite so onboard with the lovefest, with one woman admitting that she found it to be “a little bit clown-creepy”. </p> <p><em>Images: Facebook</em></p>

Family & Pets

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5 tips to take the best care of your voice for everyone who sings, from a speech pathologist

<p>The care of your singing voice is crucial to maintain a healthy and long-life voice. </p> <p>Professional singers often have teams of people keeping their voices healthy, and they have received lots of training in how to take care of their voice.</p> <p>But everyone who sings – from young students to passionate amateurs – should be taking care of their voice.</p> <p>If you are a singer, here are five crucial tips to prevent vocal problems.</p> <h2>1. Keep hydrated</h2> <p>Hydration is the most important fact to be considered when singing. </p> <p>When we are dehydrated, the biomechanical properties of our vocal folds are impacted, decreasing our vocal range and increasing the stress on these folds.</p> <p>Singers who do not hydrate well are <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2925668/">at risk</a> of developing voice disorders such as nodules and polyps.</p> <p>An easy way to stay hydrated is to keep up your water consumption. Singers can complement this by using nebulisers and humidifiers.</p> <p>Humidifiers balance out dry air caused by heating or air conditioning. </p> <p>Nebulisers assist with hydration directly. By breathing in a saline water solution or purified water, we can see an immediate influence on our vocal folds. </p> <p>You don’t need fancy equipment. You can also breathe in steam from boiled water. Make sure to be careful with the temperature, as steam can burn our airway when it is too hot. Pour boiled water into a bowl, wait 5-7 minutes, place a towel over your head and then breathe in as many times as you like. </p> <h2>2. Warm-up and cool-down your voice</h2> <p>Vocal warm-up and cool-down exercises are <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0892199717300176">crucial</a>: these will have a positive benefit on your voice in the moment and prevent future injuries. </p> <p>An easy warm-up you can try only requires a straw. With a straw between your lips into the air or a cup of water, make a “u” sound. Working for five minutes, change the pitch and frequency of making this sound. The added resistance of singing through a straw will give your vocal folds a good work out.</p> <p>You can also add resistance by speaking or singing into a CPR mask.</p> <p>Other exercises don’t require these materials. You can try lips or tongue trills, humming and blowing raspberries. </p> <p>While there are many internet tutorials on how to do these exercises, I suggest you practise under professional supervision to avoid damaging your voice by going beyond your vocal limits. </p> <h2>3. Watch your lifestyle factors</h2> <p>Lifestyle is fundamental when taking care of our voices.</p> <p>In order to avoid injuries or develop any voice disorders, we should monitor external factors such as maintaining <a href="https://wp.stolaf.edu/musician-health/nutrition-eating-and-singing/">a balanced diet</a>, having <a href="https://wp.stolaf.edu/musician-health/resting-your-voice/">periods of rest</a> and reducing the consumption of <a href="https://tobaccofreelife.org/resources/smoking-singing/">cigarettes</a>, <a href="https://www.openmicuk.co.uk/advice/alcohol-and-singers/">alcohol</a>, <a href="https://www.openmicuk.co.uk/advice/how-much-can-recreational-drugs-affect-singing/">drugs</a>, <a href="https://www.openmicuk.co.uk/advice/is-coffee-good-or-bad-for-singers/">caffeine</a> and <a href="https://www.openmicuk.co.uk/advice/are-fizzy-drinks-good-or-bad-for-singers/">soft drinks</a>. </p> <p>By changing these habits, you can preserve good vocal health and keep your body running properly. You can also guard against developing reflux.</p> <p>Reflux occurs when acids from your stomach travel back up your throat. Symptoms include a burning sensation in your chest (heartburn), backwash (regurgitation) of food or sour liquid, upper abdominal or chest pain, trouble swallowing (dysphagia) or a sensation of a lump in your throat. </p> <p>This stomach acid can <a href="http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/docs/per/diet-tips-for-gastroesophageal-reflux-disease-gerd/handout_view_patient/@@getDocument">dry and irritate</a> your vocal folds. </p> <p>If you do experience any of these symptoms, keep up your water intake, try to avoid lying down for at least two to three hours after a meal and keep your head elevated using an extra pillow or two while you sleep. </p> <p>If these symptoms persist, visit your doctor for further examination.</p> <h2>4. Listen to your body</h2> <p>Sometimes our body sends signals when struggling. We should pay close attention to what our bodies are telling us.</p> <p>Negative warning signs can include a reduced tonal range, constant throat clearing, vocal fatigue, pain during or after singing or talking, mild or moderate abdominal tension, unstable voice, pitch breaks, difficulty singing or speaking softly. </p> <p>Speaking or singing should not present with any negative symptoms or conditions. </p> <p>It’s important to note home remedies like tea with honey, lemon and ginger, and gargles with salty water – or even alcohol – <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-actually-fix-a-lost-voice-according-to-science-hint-lemon-and-honey-doesnt-work-158230">do not</a> fix your voice. These will go directly to the oesophagus and will not have any effect on your vocal folds.</p> <p>If you are experiencing symptoms like these, pay more attention to things like your warm up, your cool down, periods of rest and your levels of hydration. If they persist, visit a doctor or a speech pathologist.</p> <h2>5. See a professional</h2> <p>Don’t try and push through any pain or difficulties you are facing.</p> <p>When facing any vocal difficulty, you should visit an ear, nose and throat doctor (ENT) or a speech pathologist. </p> <p>An ENT can check your larynx and other structures to make sure you do not have any organic or functional disorders impacting your voice.</p> <p>If you would like to practise new techniques – like belting or voice distortions – consult with voice specialists like speech pathologists, vocal coaches or music teachers who are experts on these areas. </p> <p>Last but not least, check your voice with professionals once a year. This will help with the prevention of future injuries and help you maintain a healthy voice.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p> <p><em>This article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/5-tips-to-take-the-best-care-of-your-voice-for-everyone-who-sings-from-a-speech-pathologist-193222" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>. </em></p>

Music

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Why certain types of music make our brains sing, and others don’t

<p>A few years ago, Spotify published an online <a href="https://www.francetvinfo.fr/culture/musique/spotify-devoile-une-cartographie-des-gouts-musicaux_3320877.html">interactive map</a> of musical tastes, sorted by city. At the time, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/artist/5TEGxYftTkeKmLXkZjHNUE">Jeanne Added</a> prevailed in Paris and Nantes, and London was partial to local hip hop duo <a href="https://open.spotify.com/artist/31lnFZEM6ysvjOx59VyxRE">Krept and Kronan</a>. It is well established that music tastes vary over time, by region and even by social group. However, most brains look alike at birth, so what happens in them that causes us to end up with such disparate music tastes?</p> <h2>Emotions – a story of prediction</h2> <p>If one presented you with a unknown melody and suddenly stopped it, you could be able to sing the note you think fit the best. At least, professional musicians could! In a <a href="https://www.jneurosci.org/content/41/35/7449">study</a> published in the Journal of Neuroscience in September 2021, we show that similar prediction mechanisms are happening in the brain every time we listen to music, whithout us being necessarly conscious of it. Those predictions are generated in the auditory cortex and merged with the note that was actually heard, resulting in a “prediction error”. We used this prediction error as a sort of neural score to measure how well the brain could predict the next note in a melody.</p> <p>Back in <a href="https://books.google.fr/books/about/Emotion_and_Meaning_in_Music.html?id=HuWCVGKhwy0C&amp;redir_esc=y">1956</a>, the US composer and musicologist Leonard Meyer theorised that emotion could be induced in music by a sense of satisfaction or frustration derived from the listener’s expectations. Since then, academic advances have helped identify a link between musical expectations and other more complex feelings. For instance, participants in <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cogs.12477">one study</a> were able to memorize tone sequences much better if they could first accurately predict the notes within.</p> <p>Now, basic emotions (e.g., joy, sadness or annoyance) can be broken down into two fundamental dimensions, valence and psychological activation, which measure, respectively, how positive an emotion is (e.g., sadness versus joy) and how exciting it is (boredom versus anger). Combining the two helps us define these basic emotions. Two studies from <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13415-013-0161-y">2013</a> and <a href="http://webprojects.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/marcusp/papers/SauveEtAl2018.pdf">2018</a> showed that when participants were asked to rank these two dimensions on a sliding scale, there was a clear relationship between prediction error and emotion. For instance, in those studies, music notes that were less accurately predicted led to emotions with greater psychological activation.</p> <p>Throughout the history of <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn1406">cognitive neuroscience</a>, pleasure has often been linked to the reward system, particularly with regard to learning processes. <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(14)01207-X.pdf">Studies</a> have shown that there are particular dopaminergic neurons that react to prediction error. Among other functions, this process enables us to learn about and predict the world around us. It is not yet clear whether pleasure drives learning or vice versa, but the two processes are undoubtedly connected. This also applies to music.</p> <p>When we listen to music, the greatest amount of pleasure stems from events predicted with only a moderate level of accuracy. In other words, overly simple and predictable events – or, indeed, overly complex ones – do not necessarily induce new learning and thus generate only a small amount of pleasure. Most pleasure comes from the events falling in between – those that are complex enough to arouse interest but consistent enough with our predictions to form a pattern.</p> <h2>Predictions dependent on our culture</h2> <p>Nevertheless, our prediction of musical events remains inexorably bound to our musical upbringing. To explore this phenomenon, a group of researchers met with the Sámi people, who inhabit the region stretching between the northernmost reaches of Sweden and the Kola Peninsula in Russia. Their traditional singing, known as yoik, differs vastly from Western tonal music due to limited exposure to Western culture.</p> <p>For a <a href="http://users.jyu.fi/%7Eptoiviai/pdf/Cognition.Yoiks.pdf">study</a> published in 2000, musicians from Sámi regions, Finland and the rest of Europe (the latter coming from various countries unfamiliar with yoik singing) were asked to listen to excerpts of yoiks that they had never heard before. They were then asked to sing the next note in the song, which had been intentionally left out. Interestingly, the spread of data varied greatly between groups; not all participants gave the same response, but certain notes were more prevalent than others within each group. Those who most accurately predicted the next note in the song were the Sámi musicians, followed by the Finnish musicians, who had had more exposure to Sámi music than those from elsewhere in Europe.</p> <h2>Learning new cultures through passive exposure</h2> <p>This brings us to the question of how we learn about cultures, a process known as enculturation. For example, <a href="https://www.musicnotes.com/now/tips/a-complete-guide-to-time-signatures-in-music/">musical time</a> can be divided in different ways. Western musical traditions generally use <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-CEd6xrRQc">four-time signatures</a> (as often heard in classic rock ‘n’ roll) or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tn2S3kJlyU">three-time signatures</a> (as heard in waltzes). However, other cultures use what Western musical theory calls an asymmetrical meter. Balkan music, for instance, is known for asymmetrical meters like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b65FN-X3OkA">nine-time</a> or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhVzrqvAsZI">seven-time signatures</a>.</p> <p>To explore these differences, a <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.0956-7976.2005.00779.x">2005 study</a> looked at folk melodies with either symmetrical or asymmetrical meters. In each one, beats were added or removed at a specific moment – something referred to as an “accident” – and then participants of various ages listened to them. Regardless of whether the piece had a symmetrical or asymmetrical meter, infants aged six months or less listened for the same amount of time. However, 12-month-olds spent considerably more time watching the screen when the “accidents” were introduced into the symmetrical meters compared to the asymmetrical ones. We could infer from this that the subjects were more surprised by an accident in a symmetrical meter because they interpreted it as a disruption to a familiar pattern.</p> <p>To test this hypothesis, the researchers had a CD of Balkan music (with asymmetrical metres) played to the infants in their homes. The experiment was repeated after one week of listening, and the infants spent an equal amount of time watching the screen when the accidents were introduced, regardless of whether the meter was symmetrical or asymmetrical. This means that through passive listening to the Balkan music, they were able to build an internal representation of the musical metric, which allowed them to predict the pattern and detect accidents in both meter types. </p> <p>A <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2927013/pdf/nihms225442.pdf">2010 study</a> found a strikingly similar effect among adults – in this case, not for rhythm but for pitch. These experiments show that passive exposure to music can help us learn the specific musical patterns of a given culture – formally known as the process of enculturation.</p> <p>Throughout this article, we have seen how passive music listening can change the way we predict musical patterns when presented with a new piece. We have also looked at the myriad ways in which listeners predict such patterns, depending on their culture and how it distorts perception by making them feel pleasure and emotions differently. While more research is needed, these studies have opened new avenues toward understanding why there is such diversity in our music tastes. What we know for now is that our musical culture (that is, the music we have listened to throughout life) warps our perception and causes our preference for certain pieces over others, whether by similarity or by contrast to pieces that we have already heard.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p> <p><em>This article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-certain-types-of-music-make-our-brains-sing-and-others-dont-194100" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>. </em></p>

Music

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"I'm scared": Chloe Lattanzi's sneak peak of tribute song for Olivia

<p>Chloe Lattanzi has posted a heart-warming tribute to her late mother Olivia Newtown-John in an upcoming song.</p> <p>The 36-year-old told fans on Instagram that she was “terrified” when writing the track. While she did not yet release the song itself, Lattanzi shared a clip, which served as an excellent sneak peak into the writing process.</p> <p>Standing by a microphone, Chloe said she let the inspiration flow before launching into the song.</p> <p>She said: “Oh shit I’m scared. This is a scary place right now because there is so much inside and I don’t know how to put it into words. I don’t know what to say. I’m terrified.”</p> <blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/reel/CiWlV5TDzll/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"> </div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"> </div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/CiWlV5TDzll/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by Chloe Lattanzi (@chloelattanziofficial)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p>She then began to sing, but chose to mute the song for now, with plans to release it when it's finished.</p> <p>Chloe is the only child of the late Olivia Newton-John and her ex-husband Matt Lattanzi. In a recent interview, Chloe revealed she married her long-time fiancé in a secret ceremony officiated by her late mother.</p> <p><em>Images: Instagram </em></p>

Music

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The 30 seconds that changed Johnny Ruffo’s life forever

<p dir="ltr">Johnny Ruffo made the (literal) last-minute decision to apply to the <em>X-Factor</em> auditions – a move which he now credits for his life changing irrevocably.</p> <p dir="ltr">The 34-year-old was still tossing up between whether or not he should apply for the singing show in 2009, and when he did he only had 30 seconds to do so before the cut-off kicked in and he would miss his chance forever.</p> <p dir="ltr">Of course, he went on to wow the judges and made it to the top three – which eventually saw him rise to fame and head off on tour tour with <em>One Direction</em> and <em>The Backstreet Boys</em>.</p> <p dir="ltr">“I was fairly happy with the path that I made for myself,” Ruffo says.</p> <p dir="ltr">“I had concerts, I was doing performances and shows, and I was really quite happy with how everything was going.”</p> <p dir="ltr">It was a few years later, in 2017, when Ruffo was <a href="https://oversixty.com.au/health/caring/johnny-ruffo-s-devastating-news" target="_blank" rel="noopener">first diagnosed with brain cancer</a> as he struggled with multiple headaches.</p> <p dir="ltr">His girlfriend Tahnee Sims pushed him to go to hospital where he was told that if he hadn’t come in then he wouldn’t have woken up the next day.</p> <p dir="ltr">But the <em>Home and Away</em> actor has now revealed that his cancer is back and it is terminal.</p> <p dir="ltr">As he struggled through the headaches, Ruffo was forced to wait four months before seeing a specialist.</p> <p dir="ltr">“The anxiety levels go up through the roof and you’re just waiting and waiting,” he told <a href="https://7news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity/the-30-seconds-that-changed-johnny-ruffos-destiny-star-opens-up-on-life-after-terminal-diagnosis-c-8067616" target="_blank" rel="noopener">7 Entertainment</a>.</p> <p dir="ltr">“And it’s like it feels like six months, but it’s only a week. And that’s just honestly... a day feels like a month.”</p> <p dir="ltr">It was only when he suffered 11 seizures in four days that Ruffo was rushed to hospital where he underwent an MRI scan.</p> <p dir="ltr">There they found multiple tumours and determined that he would have to start treatment immediately.</p> <p dir="ltr">“It felt like another kick in the teeth... yeah, dammit,” he said.</p> <p dir="ltr">The terminal diagnosis gave Ruffo a new “goal” in which he is <a href="https://oversixty.com.au/health/caring/he-is-everything-to-me-why-johnny-ruffo-is-hanging-on-for-christmas" target="_blank" rel="noopener">waiting for Christmas</a> where he will reunite with his brother and “best friend”, who has been away in Ireland for the past three years.</p> <p dir="ltr">He has also released a book, <em>No Finish Line</em>, dedicated to his girlfriend, in which he details his experiences recording music, acting, his girlfriend, family and partying.</p> <p dir="ltr">The title, he explains, is that “it wasn’t the end”.</p> <p dir="ltr">Ruffo is currently receiving chemotherapy injections every three weeks which he says are making him feel like “s***”.</p> <p dir="ltr">I’m always fatigued, just walking up a set of stairs,” he says.</p> <p dir="ltr">“By the time I get to the top I just want to have a sleep.”</p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Images: Instagram</em></p>

Caring

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Olivia Newton-John’s daughter shares never seen before footage

<p dir="ltr">Olivia Newton-John's daughter has shared a beautiful behind-the-scenes video of a duet she did with her mother.</p> <p dir="ltr">Chloe Rose Lattanzi shared the video to Instagram of her and her mum singing <em>Window In The Wall </em>at Olivia’s home studio.</p> <p dir="ltr">The 36-year-old could be seen smiling at her mother as the pair hugged, smiled and began to sing the beautiful song.</p> <p dir="ltr">“You are my lighthouse mama. My safe place. My heart space. It has been my honor and continues to be my honor to be your baby and best friend,” Chloe wrote.</p> <p dir="ltr">“You are an angel on earth and everyone touched by you has been blessed. I love you forever my life giver, my teacher, my mama.”</p> <p dir="ltr">The song was released in January 2021 and at the time Olivia knew it was one that she wanted to sing with her daughter.</p> <p dir="ltr">“I’ve always enjoyed singing duets more than singing on my own, and when I first heard this song, I knew immediately that I wanted to sing it with my daughter Chloe,” she previously said.</p> <p dir="ltr">“The lyrics and melody really resonated with me, and I hoped Chloe would feel the same way – and luckily, she did!”</p> <p dir="ltr">Chloe at the time also knew it was a song she wanted to perform with her mother when she played it for her.</p> <p dir="ltr">“When my mom played the song for me I knew I wanted to record it, not only because it was with my mom but, I felt the lyrics and message might help people see things from another perspective,” Chloe said.</p> <p dir="ltr">“We are all part of the same human race and if we listen to each other, respect each other and love each other - for both our likenesses and our differences - we might just understand each other a lot more.”</p> <blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/reel/ChC-Nr8j1_w/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"> </div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"> </div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/ChC-Nr8j1_w/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by Chloe Lattanzi (@chloelattanziofficial)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p dir="ltr">The heartwarming behind-the-scenes video comes following the devastating news of Olivia’s death on Monday at her home in California.</p> <p dir="ltr">The 73-year-old fought her breast cancer diagnosis for 30 years but unfortunately succumbed to it.</p> <p dir="ltr">The news of <a href="https://oversixty.com.au/health/caring/honouring-dame-olivia-newton-john" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Olivia’s passing was announced by her husband</a> John Easterling on Instagram via his late wife’s account, and included an appeal to continue her good works in the field of cancer research:</p> <p dir="ltr">“Dame Olivia Newton-John (73) passed away peacefully at her Ranch in Southern California this morning, surrounded by family and friends. We ask that everyone please respect the family’s privacy during this very difficult time,” he wrote.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Olivia has been a symbol of triumphs and hope for over 30 years sharing her journey with breast cancer.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Her healing inspiration and pioneering experience with plant medicine continues with the Olivia Newton-John Foundation Fund, dedicated to researching plant medicine and cancer. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that any donations be made in her memory to the @onjfoundation."</p> <p dir="ltr">Her daughter Chloe also shared a <a href="https://oversixty.com.au/lifestyle/family-pets/no-words-emotional-images-from-olivia-newton-john-s-daughter" target="_blank" rel="noopener">series of heartwarming photos</a> upon the news breaking as celebrities and fans alike offered their condolences.</p> <p dir="ltr">The family have also accepted a state funeral from Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews.</p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Images: Instagram</em></p>

Family & Pets

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Flow state, exercise and healthy ageing: 5 unexpected benefits of singing

<p>Singing with others feels amazing. Group singing <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-020-00549-0">promotes social bonding</a> and has been <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/03057356211042668">shown to</a> raise oxytocin (the “bonding hormone”) and decrease cortisol (the “stress hormone”).</p> <p>But it’s not just about singing in groups. There are many unexpected ways singing is good for you, even if you’re on your own.</p> <p>Singing is a free and accessible activity which can help us live happier, healthier and more fulfilling lives.</p> <p>And before you protest you are “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1196/annals.1360.018">tone deaf</a>” and “can’t sing”, research shows <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0022429420951630">most people</a> can sing accurately in tune, so let’s warm up those voices and get singing.</p> <h2>1. Singing gets you in the zone</h2> <p>If you’ve ever lost track of time while doing something slightly challenging but enjoyable, you’ve likely experienced <a href="https://www.headspace.com/articles/flow-state">the flow state</a>. Some people refer to this feeling as being “in the zone”.</p> <p>According to <a href="https://positivepsychology.com/perma-model/">positive psychology</a>, flow, or deep engagement in a task, is considered one of the key elements of well-being.</p> <p>Research has shown singing can induce the flow state in <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0305735619899137">expert singers</a> and <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00518/full">group singing</a>.</p> <p>One way to get into this flow state is through improvisation.</p> <p>Try your hand at some <a href="https://psyche.co/ideas/the-jazz-singers-mind-shows-us-how-to-improvise-through-life-itself">vocal improvisation</a> by picking one phrase in a song you know well and playing around with it. You can improvise by slightly changing the melody, rhythm, even the lyrics.</p> <p>You may well find yourself lost in your task – if you don’t realise this until afterwards, it is a sign you’ve been in flow.</p> <h2>2. Singing gets you in touch with your body</h2> <p>Singers make music with the body. Unlike instrumentalists, singers have no buttons to push, no keys to press and no strings to pluck.</p> <p>Singing is a deeply <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/10298649211062730">embodied activity</a>: it reminds us to get in touch with our whole selves. When you’re feeling stuck in your head, try singing your favourite song to reconnect with your body.</p> <p>Focus on your breathing and the physical sensations you can feel in your throat and chest.</p> <p>Singing is also a great way to raise your awareness of any physical tensions you may be holding in your body, and there is increasing interest in the intersection between <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0305735617729452">singing and mindfulness</a>.</p> <h2>3. Singing as exercise</h2> <p>We often forget singing is a fundamentally physical task which most of us can do reasonably well.</p> <p>When we sing, we are making music with the larynx, the vocal tract and other articulators (including your tongue, lips, soft and hard palates and teeth) and the respiratory system.</p> <p>Just as we might jog to improve our cardiovascular fitness, we can exercise the voice to improve our singing. <a href="http://thevoiceworkshop.com/somatic-voicework/">Functional voice training</a> helps singers understand and use their voice according to optimal physical function.</p> <p>Singing is increasingly being used to help improve <a href="https://www.jvoice.org/article/S0892-1997(16)30442-8/fulltext">respiratory health</a> for a wide range of health conditions, including those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Parkinson’s, asthma and cancer.</p> <p>Because singing provides such a great workout for the respiratory system, it is even being used <a href="https://www.eno.org/eno-breathe/about-the-eno-breathe-programme/">to help people</a> suffering from long COVID.</p> <h2>4. Singing builds psychological resources</h2> <p>Group singing can help combat social isolation and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0733464815577141">create new social connections</a>, help people <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0305735620944230">cope with caring burdens</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17533015.2019.1624584">enhance mental health</a>.</p> <p>Studies show these psychological benefits flow because group singing promotes new social identities.</p> <p>When we sing with others we identify with, we build inner resources like belonging, meaning and purpose, social support, efficacy and agency.</p> <h2>5. Singing for “super-ageing”</h2> <p>“<a href="https://ana-neurosurgery.com/want-to-be-a-superager/">Super-agers</a>” are people around retirement age and older whose cognitive abilities (such as memory and attention span) <a href="https://www.jneurosci.org/content/36/37/9659">remain youthful</a>.</p> <p>Research conducted by distinguished psychologist and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett and her lab suggest the best-known way to become a superager is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/31/opinion/sunday/how-to-become-a-superager.html?referringSource=articleShare">to work hard at something</a>.</p> <p>Singing requires the complex coordination of various physical components — and that’s just to make a sound! The artistic dimension of singing includes memorisation and interpretation of lyrics and melodies, understanding and being able to hear the underlying musical harmony, sensing rhythm and much more.</p> <p>These characteristics of singing make it an ideal candidate as a super-ageing activity.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p> <p><em>This article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/flow-state-exercise-and-healthy-ageing-5-unexpected-benefits-of-singing-180415" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>. </em></p>

Music

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Mum’s singing helps save premature baby

<p dir="ltr">Alana was just 24 weeks pregnant when she was rushed to Mater Mothers' Hospital in Brisbane when her water broke.</p> <p dir="ltr">It was far too early for her to give birth and doctors and nurses did everything they could to keep little Rafferty in, but he had another plan.</p> <p dir="ltr">Rafferty was born on October 25 and weighed a terrifying 704g. He was given a 60 per cent chance of survival.</p> <p dir="ltr">He was placed in an incubator in the NICU where parents Alana and Angus watched on, hoping for their baby to pull through.</p> <blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CVcJpQbBDTN/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"> </div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"> </div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CVcJpQbBDTN/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by Alana Wilkinson (@alana.wilkinson)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p dir="ltr">The couple then decided to move their wedding forward when baby Rafferty was just three weeks and married next to his incubator.</p> <p dir="ltr">"I knew I needed to get as much love into him as possible," Alana told <a href="https://honey.nine.com.au/parenting/birth-stories-premature-baby-nicu-mum-music-therapy-wedding/7f913fc3-22b8-4e58-83c4-fab17836844a" target="_blank" rel="noopener">9Honey</a>.</p> <p dir="ltr">"To just cram the love into him. And so we decided to have a beautiful ceremony to bless his arrival and show him how loved and needed he is. We filled the room with as much love as we could. And it was absolutely incredible."</p> <blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CXdRYdtPf1c/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"> </div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"> </div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CXdRYdtPf1c/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by Alana Wilkinson (@alana.wilkinson)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p dir="ltr">The 31-year-old mother then spent every day singing and playing the ukulele to her son as well as cuddling him.</p> <p dir="ltr">“'Got to get that bone marrow working making those red blood cells, got to get that haemoglobin rising up my baby..." were some of the lyrics Alana would sing.</p> <p dir="ltr">Alana then realised that as she was singing, Rafferty’s heart rate would stabilise.</p> <p dir="ltr">After months of singing, Alana and Angus were finally able to take their bundle of joy home in February – but he still requires oxygen.</p> <p dir="ltr">The now seven-month-old is the “happiest little poppet” and continues to giggle, making his parents happy.</p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Images: Instagram</em></p>

Family & Pets

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Mid-flight singalong strikes the wrong chord

<p dir="ltr">A man who sang a Christian worship song while strumming his guitar on board a plane has gone viral for all the wrong reasons. </p> <p dir="ltr">Jonathan Neo was on an easyJet flight when he started to sing to his fellow passengers mid-flight.</p> <p dir="ltr">Footage of the singing was shared online by the pastor of the group Jack Jensz Jr who captioned it: “Worshipping our King Jesus 30,000 feet in the air!”</p> <p dir="ltr">The video, which received a whopping 31 million views in just two days, showed a few of the passengers singing along with Jonathan while others looked on angrily. </p> <blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/reel/CcIbSzRD7dm/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"> </div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"> </div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/CcIbSzRD7dm/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by Jack Jensz Jr. (@jackjenszjr_)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p dir="ltr">Many people in the comments section slammed the group for inconveniencing passengers and for their lack of respect.</p> <p dir="ltr">“No self awareness here at all. I'll be praying for you guys to actually learn some,” one wrote.</p> <p dir="ltr">“I would rather go to Jesus right NOW than endure that nightmare of a flight,” another commented.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Do you feel good about holding people hostage? Did Jesus say to force feed His word against people's will? Disgraceful,” another person wrote.</p> <p dir="ltr">“What a self-righteous, presumptuous, and annoying thing to inflict on a plane full of strangers,” someone else commented.</p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Images: Instagram</em></p>

Travel Trouble

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Woman turns herself in after fatal attack on 87-year-old singing coach

<p>A 26-year-old woman has turned herself in to police after admitting to attacking an 87-year-old woman, which led to her death. </p> <p>Lauren Pazienza shoved Barbara Maier Gustern before striking her on the back of the head in an unprompted attack on March 10th in New York City. </p> <p>The NYPD released a picture of the woman wanted for the attack, just days before Lauren turned herself in to authorities. </p> <p>Police identified Pazienza through video and her Metrocard, police sources said.</p> <p>Pazienza covered her face with her hair as she was led by detectives to a car for transport to criminal court, as she refused to answer reporters who asked her about the allegation she pushed Gustern.</p> <p>Following the brutal attack, Barbara was in critical condition until she died from her injuries on March 14th. </p> <p>“Today, at 11:15am, we have lost one of the brightest little flames to ever grace this world,” her grandson wrote on Gustern’s Facebook page. </p> <p>“I ask that you all give me a little time and space, but I want to make time for anyone and everyone who wants to know more about her final moments,” the post said.</p> <p>“Bobbob, I love you, you are and always will be my heart,” it said. “I love you all so much, I could not have made it through these past 5 days without all of your support.”</p> <p>Barbara Maier Gustern, who was a renowned vocal coach and tutored famous students including Blondie singer Debbie Harry, was walking around at night alone when the attack occurred. </p> <p>Her red-headed attacker then ran off, with police saying the attacker crossed the street before pushing Gustern, who suffered a fatal head injury.</p> <p>NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig described it as a “disgusting, disgraceful law offence” committed against a “vulnerable elderly female who is doing nothing but walking down the streets of New York City”.</p> <p><em>Image credits: NYPD / Facebook</em></p>

Travel Trouble

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How Frank Sinatra was caught singing 20 years after his death

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Fans were confused in 2020 when seemingly footage of Frank Sinatra went viral of him singing about hot tubs.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The iconic singer died in 1998, so many were wondering how old audio clips of him surfaced, but the audios were actually new. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">However, they weren’t Frank Sinatra singing at all.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The song, titled Hot Tub Christmas, was the product of a new technology known as a “deepfake” that mimicked Sinatra’s iconic voice. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The video came from a San Francisco tech company who used their AI system, known as Jukebox, to generate new songs and vocals that almost sound exactly like real artists. </span></p> <p><strong>So, what is a deepfake?</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Deepfakes are realistic video or audio of events that never actually took place and are generated by artificial intelligence.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">These videos have been used to trick online users into thinking their favourite celebrities said things they never actually did. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The tech has been used to create fake videos of Hollywood actor Tom Cruise, which set off alarm bells in national security circles. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Deepfakes can also be used to manipulate images, where people’s faces have been added into random events and videos. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Audio deepfakes, like this unusual track of Frank Sinatra’s have received less attention in the media so far. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">One audio deepfake that has garnered a lot of criticism is a recreation of the voice of late chef Anthony Bourdain for use in his upcoming documentary. </span></p> <p><strong>How are deepfakes made?</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">These audios are created by artificial intelligence ingesting and examining 1.2 million songs, their corresponding lyrics and information, such as artist names, genres and years of release.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Using this data, AI can create new music samples from scratch and make them seem like they came from the original artist. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">While some celebrities who have been spoofed in deepfakes have expressed their discomfort and irritation in the new tech, one singer named Holly Herndon believes they are here to stay</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">She said, "Vocal deepfakes are here to stay. A balance needs to be found between protecting artists and encouraging people to experiment with a new and exciting technology."</span></p> <p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Image credit: Getty Images</span></em></p>

Music

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‘Muting’ your singing partner could be the reason duets work

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Singing duos require a certain level of musical chemistry, and a recent study has confirmed it.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">By analysing the brain patterns of Ecuadorian plain-tailed wrens as they sang, the researchers found that each singer mutes the song-making areas of their partner’s brain as they take turns singing.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The study, published in </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">, saw researchers studying the brain activity of male and female wrens singing individually and in pairs.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">They said the motor circuits used for singing are temporarily inhibited in the listening partner, which helps connect the pair’s brains and coordinate turn-taking so it sounds like only one bird is singing.</span></p> <p><strong>Using our senses to take turns</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The study has also provided a new insight into how humans and other cooperative animals use sensory cues to coordinate with each other.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Eric Fortune, co-author of the study and neurobiologist at New Jersey Institute of Technology’s Department of Biological Sciences, said that timing is everything for these sorts of performances.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“What these wrens have shown us is that for any good collaboration, partners need to become ‘one’ through sensory linkages,” he said. “The take-home message is that when we are cooperating well … we become a single entity with our partners.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Think of these birds like jazz singers,” said corresponding author and associate professor of biology at Scripps College Melissa Coleman. “Duetting wrens have a rough song structure planned before they sing, but as the song evolves, they must rapidly coordinate by receiving constant input from their counterpart.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Though the team expected the birds would have specialised neurons to coordinate this turn-taking, they were surprised to discover that listening to their partner is what prevents them from singing over the top.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When looking at the brain activity of birds as they sang, the neurons responsible for learning and making music would rapidly fire. But when listening to their partner, their neurons became much less active.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“You can think of inhibition as acting like a trampoline,” Fortune explained. “When the birds hear their partner, the neurons are inhibited, but just like rebounding off a trampoline, the release from that inhibition causes them to swiftly respond when it’s their time to sing.”</span></p> <p><strong>What this means for humans</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Though we might not experience the same kinds of inhibition as the plain-tailed wren, poor internet connections during video conferencing or the loss of reception during a phone call affect the sensory information we use to coordinate our conversations with other people and avoid interrupting, speaking over someone, and other conversational pitfalls.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“I think this study is important for understanding how we interact with the world whenever we are trying to produce a single behaviour as two performers,” Coleman said.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“We are wired for cooperation, the same way as these jazz singing wrens.”</span></p> <p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Image: Getty Images</span></em></p>

Mind

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“Sworn to secrecy”: Aussie dad finally able to crow about daughter’s royal moment

<p>As one of the four-person choir that sang at Prince Philip’s scaled-back funeral, Miriam Allan also stood out as the only woman. Back in his Newcastle home, her father watched on proudly.</p> <p dir="ltr">Chris Allan said he has known his daughter was incredibly talented since she was a “musically precocious” six-year old.</p> <p dir="ltr">Ms Allan performed Jubilate Deo, Benjamin Britten’s sacred choral composition, alongside the choir at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor on Saturday. But, this wasn’t the first time she’s sung the song, having performed it since she was a child growing up in New South Wales.</p> <p dir="ltr">Before her latest performance and the establishment of her international renown as a soprano, her father said she would perform it at Newcastle’s Christ Church Cathedral.</p> <p dir="ltr">“The Britten that they sang during the service, she’s been singing since she was a little kid,” Mr Allan said.</p> <p dir="ltr">Having since moved to England in 2003, Mr Allan said his daughter would use him as a “sounding board”. He watched as her career blossomed, taking her on tours around the world with leading orchestras and choirs.</p> <blockquote style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/B9SLiFKgtQy/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="13"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"></div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B9SLiFKgtQy/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank">A post shared by Miriam Allan (@miriamsoprano)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p dir="ltr">Reminiscing on fond memories of accompanying his daughter on piano, as a composer, and singing together, he said, “I played for her and gave her music to sing and so forth when she was younger.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“There were many times when we sang or played together - I would play the piano and accompany her.”</p> <p dir="ltr">The pair have performed on some of the same programs since she was a teenager. Their most recent performance in August 2019 was for the Newcastle Music Festival - held in the cathedral where her musical career started.</p> <p dir="ltr">Ms Allan is married to Richard Bannan, a lay clerk, one of the 12 choral singers employed to sing at St. George’s Chapel. She also teaches singing in Oxfordshire and is a singing coach at a preparatory school in Westminster.</p> <p dir="ltr">Mr Allan said he was thrilled to watch his daughter perform at the sombre yet moving service for Prince Philip.</p> <blockquote style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CNz6evNA1Wb/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="13"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"></div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CNz6evNA1Wb/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank">A post shared by Miriam Allan (@miriamsoprano)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p dir="ltr">But, this isn’t the first time she’s performed for the Duke either. Mr Allan said, “She used to sing years ago in the Royal Guards Chapel and Prince Philip would often come to that, so she had sung for him a number of times.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“It was quite a lovely experience to be able to sing [for him] again.”</p> <p dir="ltr">Until a phone call on Friday afternoon, Mr Allan had no idea that his daughter would be performing for Queen Elizabeth and the 30 other royal family members in attendance and had expected her husband would be the one singing.</p> <p dir="ltr">“She said, ‘Someone in the family is going to sing and it’s not Rich’,” he said.</p> <p dir="ltr">“We were sworn to secrecy at the time because it was all embargoed.”</p> <p dir="ltr">He was surprised and thrilled, and said “it was a great opportunity for her.”</p> <p dir="ltr">Mr Allan, along with his wife, Gerogei Laney, watched the performance from their Newcastle home.</p> <p dir="ltr">Commenting on her composure, he said, “To have that ability and to be able to keep your composure under that stressful condition when you know lots of people are watching is pretty good.”</p>

Music

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Nicole Kidman shows off incredible singing voice

<p><span>Nicole Kidman has reminded fans that she not only acts, but she sings spectacularly too.</span><br /><br /><span>The Undoing actress, 53, leant her vocals to the TV show's title track after her director Susanne Bier persuaded her.</span><br /><br /><span>Kidman posted a video of her singing the song 'Dream A Little Dream Of Me' on Instagram.</span><br /><br /><span>She went on to explain that Bier called her to say, "I've had an idea — I want you to record the title sequence."</span><br /><br /><span>"I was like, 'Absolutely not'," Kidman responded, before adding, "Then she said 'You have to. And I went 'OK'."</span><br /><br /><span>While many may not know she has some serious vocal chops, this is not her first public performance.</span></p> <blockquote style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/tv/CHDj7r2pc-S/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="13"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"></div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <p style="margin: 8px 0 0 0; padding: 0 4px;"><a style="color: #000; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/tv/CHDj7r2pc-S/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank">Danish director + musician husband + filming in a basement studio = nervous singer of #TheUndoing theme song.</a></p> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;">A post shared by <a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/nicolekidman/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank"> Nicole Kidman</a> (@nicolekidman) on Nov 1, 2020 at 8:57am PST</p> </div> </blockquote> <p><br /><span>She sang in the musicals Moulin Rouge and Nine.</span><br /><br /><span>Despite her previous experience, she told The Sydney Morning Herald that she was incredibly nervous.</span><br /><br /><span>"I can't do with my voice what I can do when I act and that's very frustrating," Kidman said.</span><br /><br /><span>"With performance, there's the possibility I may not get there. But at least I know I can try to reach it. With voice, I just can't. I wish I could sing what I feel."</span><br /><br /><span>In an interview on Zoe Ball's Radio 2 show, Kidman explained the thought process behind recording the track.</span><br /><br /><span>"We were in lockdown. We were in Tennessee, in Nashville, and the director sent me a text going, 'Would you sing the title track, 'Dream a Little Dream,' to the series?'" Kidman said.</span></p> <blockquote style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CGFWWtFpi22/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="13"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"></div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <p style="margin: 8px 0 0 0; padding: 0 4px;"><a style="color: #000; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CGFWWtFpi22/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank">Love getting to play dress up and chat about @UndoingHBO with @MarieClaireAU ✨ Link in bio xx</a></p> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;">A post shared by <a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/nicolekidman/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank"> Nicole Kidman</a> (@nicolekidman) on Oct 8, 2020 at 6:05am PDT</p> </div> </blockquote> <p><br /><span>"I was like, 'What? No, I so don't want to do that. My voice is not good,' which is always my reaction, and she said, 'No, no, I think you can sing it.'"</span><br /><br /><span>Kidman has been married to musician Keith Urban since 2006.</span><br /><br /><span>Urban helped her by offering their home studio to record the track. "We laid it down and sent it in, and they mixed it so it ended up in the series," she said.</span><br /><br /><span>"I don't know if that's a good or bad thing."</span></p>

Music

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Lockdown singing: The science of why music helps us connect in isolation

<p>“Don’t hold back, sing with all of your heart,” said our colleague Simon Baron-Cohen on a Zoom meeting the other night with his fellow band members. Simon is director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University by day and bass player of the blues and funk group Deep Blue by night. His band and many others are taking to the Zoom airways to play music together.</p> <p>One of the most encouraging phenomena we have begun to see in response to social distancing laws are the innovative ways that people are starting to bond with each other, particularly musically.</p> <p>At the start of the lockdown in Italy, videos went viral on social media of neighbours singing with each other <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q734VN0N7hw">across their balconies</a>. This trend also happened in Israel, Spain, Iraq, the US, France, Lebanon, India, Germany <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2020/03/music-and-encouragement-from-balconies-around-world/608668/">and other countries</a>. And it wasn’t just balconies. People went to their rooftops, windows, and even online.</p> <p>This need to bond – through music especially – relates to the fundamental features of being human. In some ways, amid the horrors of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are experiencing a global social psychological experiment that is giving us insight into what lies at the core of our humanity.</p> <p><strong>Social brains</strong></p> <p>We are innately social creatures. In fact, some scholars have argued that, on a biological level, the social brain in humans is more developed <a href="http://www.prazsak.hu/kurzusok/kolozsvar/Dunbar_1998.pdf">than that of any other species on earth</a>. As such, we humans have a biological need to form bonds and cooperate with one another.</p> <p>This is evident in the physiological and psychological stress we experience when we are isolated, which increases our drive to connect with others – something we are witnessing in societies around the world. Simply put, the social brain needs to be fed and, if forced into isolation, will adapt to find ways to connect.</p> <p>What is interesting is that simply messaging each other or making phone calls doesn’t seem to do the trick. Even face-to-face video conferencing hasn’t been enough for many. We need to connect in a way that the social brain will resonate with on an emotional level.</p> <p>This is where music comes in. We are all familiar with the phrase “music is food for the soul”, but it is also true that “music is food for the brain”.</p> <p>Research shows that when we sing together, our social brains <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115110">are activated to produce oxytocin</a>. This is a brain hormone closely linked to the way humans socialise with each other. It is released when we form social bonds, when we are synchronised with each other during face-to-face interactions, and when we are intimate with others, which is why some refer to it as the “cuddle” or “love” hormone.</p> <p>Recent research on music has shown that oxytocin increases when we sing in all sorts of ways. Work by <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00518/full">neuroscientist Jason Keeler and colleagues in 2015</a> showed that choral singing increased oxytocin. Another study in 2017 by T Moritz Schladt and colleagues showed that oxytocin increased during <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319703525_Choir_versus_Solo_Singing_Effects_on_Mood_and_Salivary_Oxytocin_and_Cortisol_Concentrations">improvisational singing with others</a>.</p> <p>But it isn’t just singing that increases oxytocin. A <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5718605/">2017 study by Yuuki Oishi and colleagues</a> showed that oxytocin increases after just listening to music. And not only that, it increases when listening to both slow and fast musical tempos.</p> <p><strong>What makes us human</strong></p> <p>All of this points to why, on a biological level, music is part of what makes us human. Everyone is different and there is music to meet everyone’s tastes, which is why we run a project called <a href="https://musicaluniverse.io/">Musical Universe</a> in which people can take tests and find out how their unique musical preferences links to their <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-your-musical-taste-says-about-your-personality-50492">brain type and personality</a>.</p> <p>But whatever your specific tastes, music plays an important role in connecting with others in lockdown. That’s why group singing sessions have sprouted across courtyards and via video conferencing platforms during the pandemic. And why we see Elton John, Alicia Keys, Chris Martin of Coldplay and many others live streaming concerts from their homes for the world to partake in.</p> <p>Music dates back at least 40,000 years in human history. Evolutionary theories about the origins of music are many, but <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257233064_The_evolution_of_music_Theories_definitions_and_the_nature_of_the_evidence">most emphasise its social role</a>. This includes strengthening group cohesion in hunter-gatherer times and as a way of signalling shared values and strength within and between tribal groups.</p> <p>Even Charles Darwin contemplated the origins of music, and argued that it may have played a part in sexual selection. He suggested that courtship songs might have signalled attractive and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22537940">evolutionary adaptive traits to potential partners</a>.</p> <p>Today, while we face a global crisis, music shows no signs of slowing down, even in forced isolation. Music lies at the very essence of our humanity because it enables the level of social bonding that distinguishes us from other species. From lullabies sung from a parent to their infant, to mass jam sessions online, we can all turn to song to maintain our sanity, our hope, and our empathy toward one another.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137312/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p> <p><span><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/david-m-greenberg-204317"><em>David M. Greenberg</em></a><em>, Zuckerman Postdoctoral Scholar at Bar-Ilan University and Honorary Research Associate at the Autism Research Centre, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-cambridge-1283">University of Cambridge</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/ilanit-gordon-1050493">Ilanit Gordon</a>, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology and Director of the Social Neuroscience Lab at the Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/bar-ilan-university-2112">Bar-Ilan University</a></em></span></p> <p><em>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/lockdown-singing-the-science-of-why-music-helps-us-connect-in-isolation-137312">original article</a>.</em></p>

Mind

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Three evolutionary perks of singing

<p>We’re enjoying the one time of year when protests of “I can’t sing!” are laid aside and we sing carols with others. For some this is a once-a-year special event; the rest of the year is left to the professionals to handle the singing (except, perhaps, some alone time in the shower or car).</p> <p>Music – and singing in particular, as the oldest and only ubiquitous form of music creation – plays a central role in our lives and shared community experiences, and this has been true for every culture for as far back as we can trace our <a href="http://msx.sagepub.com/content/12/1_suppl/147.short">human ancestors</a>.</p> <p>So does singing in a group provide specific and tangible benefits, or is it merely a curious ability that provides entertainment through creative expression?</p> <p>This is a question currently of great interest to evolutionary theorists, linguists, psychologists and musicologists. The debate took off when psychologist <a href="http://stevenpinker.com/biocv">Steven Pinker</a> stated his opinion that music is a spandrel – a useless evolutionary by-product of another, useful, trait. In this case, he <a href="http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/1998_02_07_independentsunday.html">suggested</a> that music is a spandrel of language development, providing no advantage and serving no purpose.</p> <p>There are strong links between music and language development, although there is no consensus on the actual nature of the relationship. <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&amp;lr=&amp;id=5N-5ufxUuJkC&amp;oi=fnd&amp;pg=PR7&amp;dq=mithen+language+music&amp;ots=Nmz7BqWOGN&amp;sig=cORWFrjZRXp0u0foYweaNXpVgsA&amp;redir_esc=y#v=onepage&amp;q=mithen%20language%20music&amp;f=false">Arguments</a> include theories that:</p> <ul> <li>language developed from music</li> <li>music sprang from language</li> <li>they both developed from a proto-language that was musical in nature</li> <li>they developed concurrently.</li> </ul> <p>A <a href="http://pom.sagepub.com/content/33/3/269.short">strong body</a> of <a href="http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/intellect/jaah/2010/00000001/00000001/art00003">research</a> conducted with choirs indicates that membership has many benefits to individual wellbeing and physical health. It is possible these effects are due to people – the singers – participating in something they enjoy doing. Or, there may be something more elemental taking place.<span class="attribution"><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/" class="license"></a></span></p> <p>If these findings are viewed through an evolutionary lens, though, there is compelling evidence that music making provided some very specific benefits for our ancestors. Specifically, there are three theories which have been proposed that, if true, may explain these effects while suggesting that group singing is still beneficial to all:</p> <ol> <li>singing creates a shared emotional experience</li> <li>singing increases social bonding</li> <li>singing improves cognitive function.</li> </ol> <p><strong>Sing us a song, you’re the hominid</strong></p> <p>Our hominid ancestors used music to create <a href="http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/40285265?uid=2&amp;uid=4&amp;sid=21105364197793">shared emotional experiences</a>. This would have been particularly important for early hominids struggling to survive, because emotions serve as a kind of “red flag” to our cognitive processing systems, signalling that something critical requires attention.</p> <p>Emotions prioritise the many options that we may have at any given time, and reduces “data overload” from the bombardment of senses that we experience. Hominids, like many other primates, could have developed very small social groups, or even no social groups.</p> <p>But the ability for a large group to work cooperatively together was more advantageous than individuals attempting to survive alone. In order to cooperate, individuals needed to subsume their individual priorities for action, and learn to delay gratification so that the good of the group could take precedence (such as forgoing eating or sleeping in order to build a shelter). Group singing likely provided a rewarding, positive activity where emotional empathy could be developed.</p> <p>We know that interacting with music today is, for <a href="https://theconversation.com/video-why-some-people-just-dont-like-music-28605">almost everyone</a>, both an emotional and overwhelmingly positive experience. Music is also used to reinforce positive moods and manage negative moods. Adolescents regularly use music as an effective <a href="http://pom.sagepub.com/content/35/1/88.short">mood regulator</a>.</p> <p>Others put music to targeted purposes; many athletes use music to put them in a mood state that supports peak performance (and research shows it to be an <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25202850">effective strategy</a>). Music’s ability to change or reinforce a mood relies on the same principle of emotion contagion.</p> <p><strong>Social significance</strong></p> <p>Second, music engagement would likely have led to increased <a href="http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4615-1221-9_9#page-1">pro-social behaviours</a>. This would be supported by a shared emotional state, which relies on empathic skills (empathy) to spread.</p> <p>But music is also at the centre of where we first learn to be sociable – in the <a href="http://msx.sagepub.com/content/3/1_suppl/29.short">mother-infant bond</a>. Infants are mesmerised by their mothers’ infant-directed singing. It is a communication tool between mother and infant, and is highly companionable in nature.<span class="attribution"><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/" class="license"></a></span></p> <p>Listening to a mother sing has an immediate and profound impact on an infant’s arousal and attention, including physical responses. These musical communications are highly effective despite the infant not understanding the linguistics involved. They are also universal; lullabies are recognisable as such in virtually <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/pmu/10/2/73/">every culture</a> on Earth.</p> <p>There are strong indications that group music making and social behaviours are still linked today. Individuals with <a href="http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/40300863?uid=2&amp;uid=4&amp;sid=21105364472083">Williams Syndrome</a>, in addition to profound cognitive deficits, are known for both their love of music and their incredible sociability.</p> <p>Music therapy has been shown to reliably <a href="http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD004381/BEHAV_music-therapy-for-people-with-autism-spectrum-disorder">improve social behaviours</a> in individuals on the autism spectrum. Choir members consistently report that <a href="http://rsh.sagepub.com/content/121/4/248.short">social bonds</a> are one of the primary benefits of choir membership.</p> <p>More experimental studies indicate that instrumental jazz musicians use the <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/charles_limb_your_brain_on_improv?language=en">communication centres</a> of their brains when coordinating play, and that guitarists and even audience members experience synchronised brain waves when a duet is played (see video below).</p> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"><iframe class="embed-responsive-item" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DQwDVf3ydUM"></iframe></div> <p>Studies also show that musical interactions increase both <a href="http://pom.sagepub.com/content/41/4/484.short">empathy</a> and <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090513810000462">pro-social behaviours</a> in children.</p> <p>Taken together, the evidence points to a strong link between co-creation of music and improved social bonding.</p> <p><strong>Getting ahead</strong></p> <p>Finally, evolutionary theorists argue that it was their musicality that allowed hominids to develop what is known as the “<a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/317/5843/1344.short">social brain</a>”, while others argue that the complex brain we enjoy today developed to keep track of large social networks. It may have been a bit of both.</p> <p>By creating a shared emotional experience and increasing members’ pro-social behaviours, group singing supported complex social networks. Tracking and managing complex social networks may have led to the development of the neocortex. This brain region supports the suite of abilities known as <a href="http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/executive+function">executive function</a>, which provide the skills necessary to make and implement long-term plans.</p> <p>It also supports cognitive flexibility, which is a style of fluid cognition that allows humans to successfully pair concepts that don’t generally go together, resulting in creative, insightful, and elegant ideas and solutions.</p> <p>We already know that a positive mood state <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1057740801703129">supports</a> cognitive flexibility, while stress and anxiety act as <a href="http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/jocn.2007.19.3.468#.VI6nV3s2V4M">inhibitors</a>. Co-creating music may support improved cognitive skills through other pathways as well, although these links have not been explored.</p> <p>Of course all theories concerning the use of music by early hominid groups is conjecture, resting on the scant pieces of evidence the fossil record leaves us as well as what we know about our own musicality today. But the questions are important, because it can inform us about our own relationship to music.</p> <p>If the theories outlined here are correct, it may benefit us both as individuals and as a community to normalise and promote music co-creation. Participating in singing ought to be more than a once-a-year activity.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35367/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: http://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p> <p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/susan-maury-147257">Susan Maury</a>, PhD candidate in Psychology, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/monash-university-1065">Monash University</a></em></p> <p><em>This article is republished from <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/all-together-now-three-evolutionary-perks-of-singing-35367">original article</a>.</em></p>

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Singing helps relieve stress according to top psychiatrists

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">One of the UK’s leading psychiatrists has said that people who are feeling stressed should consider joining a choir.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Professor Sir Simon Wessely made the announcement in a keynote speech at a recent conference on the subject of mental health among students.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“The risk is not just ineffective solutions, but the real possibility that our solutions may actually be contributing to the problem,” he said, according to </span><a href="https://www.classicfm.com/music-news/feeling-stressed-join-a-choir/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Classic FM</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></a></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He went on to say: “I would love to see trials of volunteering, peer support, sport, drama, choir and so on – that’s the research I believe we need.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">It’s not the first time that he has criticised mental health initiatives that are offered at universities across the country.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“There are things that aren’t disorders at all that students habitually get – exam stress, loneliness and so on – all of which can be problematic. But we shouldn’t go round automatically saying ‘Oh you have a psychiatric disorder, you need psychiatric or mental health or professional health,” he said to </span><a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2018/06/29/universities-may-fuelling-mental-health-crisis-leading-psychiatrist/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Telegraph</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Loneliness is a major problem for the current student population,” Prof Wessely said. “There is quite a lot of evidence that says that the solution may not be to see a counsellor, but it may be to join a choir.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“If you’re going to raise awareness in order to encourage people to seek professional help, you have to make bloody sure the services are there to deal with it,” he said .</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Otherwise what you do is add to disappointment,  frustration and anger of the people with the problems and add to the likely burn out and retirement of people trying to help [such as GPs].”</span></p>

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Sing your way to fluency: How music can help you learn a new language

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Learning a new language can take time. It can often require years of homework and tutoring sessions, as well as maintaining personal discipline to study every day.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">For those who have studied a language, they know first hand how difficult it could be to learn a foreign tongue, especially if you don’t speak it often.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">As repetition and rhythm are two crucial components when learning a language, this is exactly where music comes in.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Earworms MBT Language Learning Bundle</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> is a language learning program based on music.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The reference to “earworms” in the title refers to the phenomenon when a catchy song gets stuck in your head and refuses to escape, no matter what you do.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The course uses the same principle to teach you a new language. </span></p> <p><strong>How it works</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">You simply listen to music that is filled with rhythmic repetitions to start learning a range of verbs, nouns and useful words and phrases.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Before you know it, you’ll be able to navigate common situations and hold a general conversation in a new language.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Listening to music puts you in a relaxed state of alertness, or the “alpha state”. This is not unlike the elusive “flow state” that’s often sought after by creatives, and is considered to be the ideal state for learning.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When you listen to music that’s designed to teach you a new language, you bury the words deep into your aural cortex, which is the part of your brain that handles instant word recall.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">You’re able to choose from a range of languages, including Latin American Spanish, Italian, German and French. Once you choose your language, you’re given 200 minutes of continuous audio as well as access to a supplementary phrasebook.</span></p>

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