"The Oxford Handbook of Community Singing embraces an open-ended interpretation of socio-musical practices that can be described with the term community singing. The volume exemplifies community singing as an interdisciplinary field of study that encompasses diverse methodologies and objects of inquiry, and in the process brings together recent research from the fields that have historically engaged with the practice of group singing, including group dynamics, ethnomusicology, music history, music education, music therapy, community music, church music, music performance, sociology, political science, Latin American and North American studies, media studies, embodied psychology, theology, and philosophy.
Chapters are divided into eight interdisciplinary sections: ""Media and the Imagination of Community"", ""Singing in Place-Based Communities"", ""The Practitioner's Perspective"", ""Identity: Values, Ethnicity, and Inherited Culture"", ""Identity: Politics, Patriotism, and Assimilation"", ""Transgressing Borders, Seeking Asylum"", ""Singing and Political Action"", and ""New Paradigms"". Each is prefaced with an introduction that traces the common threads running through the methodologically and topically diverse chapters that examine culturally specific narrow instances of community singing, each confined to a given time and place, in significant detail.
The chapters explore community singing as one of two phenomena: the practice of singing as community--the utilization of collective song by communities of place or preference, and the singing of community into existence--the creation or identification of a new community, through singing, that did not exist before. Both practices can profoundly affect participants. The Handbook considers why communities are motivated to sing, what their activities mean, and how practitioners can improve the experience of singing together."
"List of Contributors Introduction: Singing as Community, Singing into Community, and Growing the Singing Community Esther M. Morgan-Ellis and Kay Norton Part I. Media and the Imagination of Community Introduction to Part I. Media and the Imagination of Community Esther M. Morgan-Ellis 1. Mediated Community Singing Esther M. Morgan-Ellis 2. Selling with Singalongs: Community Singing as Advertising in Cinema, Radio and Television Malcolm Cook 3. Singing into a Smartphone: The Persuasive Affordances of Karaoke and Lip-Syncing Apps Byrd McDaniel 4. What the Pandemic Couldn't Take Away: Group Singing Benefits That Survived Going Online Kay Norton 5. Virtual choirs and issues of community choral practice Cole Bendall 6. Community Singing in the Age of Coronavirus: The Case of Collegiate A Cappella Joshua S. Duchan Part II. Singing in Place-Based Communities Introduction to Part II. Singing in Place-Based Communities Esther M. Morgan-Ellis 7. ""Some Old Remembered Song"": Music at the Rocky Mountain Rendezvous, 1825-1840 Glen W. Hicks 8. New Music for Old Prayers: Identity Construction and Community Building in Zimbabwean Black Jewish Synagogues Lior Shragg 9. Vernacular Christmas Carol Singing in the Southern Pennines of England Ian Russell 10. ""Take Me Out"" to ""Sweet Caroline"": Collective Singing in the Ballpark Matthew W. Mihalka 11. ""Singing Their Heads Off"": Sing-along Behavior in the Nightlife of Northern England Alisun Pawley 12. Brigadoon in the Heights: Fostering Intimacy, Community, and Activism through Secular Leftist Hymnody Eve McPherson Part III. The Practitioner's Perspective Introduction to Part III. The Practitioner's Perspective Kay Norton 13. Benefits of Community Singing for Cancer Patients, Survivors and Caregivers Amy Clements-Cortés and Joyce Yip 14. ""It's about the Relationships"": Epiphanies in Songleading Roger Mantie and Glenn Marais 15. ""Everyone Can Sing"": Class Choirs in 0th through 3rd Grades and the Significance of Community Singing for Pupils' Social Wellbeing and School Engagement Lars Ole Bonde and Stefan Ingerslev 16. Singing for Singing's Sake? Community Singing in Norwegian Schools Anne Haugland Balsnes 17. ""Scare Away the Dark"": The Promotion of Singing to Create Post-Secondary Academic Communities Trudi Wright 18. Songs of Diversity: Three Case Studies of Community Singing, Identity, and Well-being Catherine Birch, Ruth Currie, Wayne Dawson, and Stephen Clift Part IV. Identity: Values, Ethnicity, and Inherited Culture Introduction to Part IV. Identity: Values, Ethnicity, and Inherited Culture Kay Norton 19. Community Choirs: The Challenges and Possibilities of Inclusivity Kayla Drudge and Anna E. Nekola 20. Blend and Balance in Trans* Choral Musicking Holly Patch 21. Peace and Harmony Prevailing: Masonic Singing in the US Andrew Schaeffer 22. Singing Jewishness: The Musical Nostalgia of Jewish Congregational Melodies Rachel Adelstein 23. Sacred Sounds and Social Justice: Singing the Spirituals in an Interracial and Multigenerational Community Choir Aleysia K. Whitmore and Marquisha L. Scott 24. Women Singing in a Rural North Indian Community: A Case Study Kamlesh Singh, Suman Sigroha, and Bharti Shokeen Part V. Identity: Politics, Patriotism, and Assimilation Introduction to Part V. Identity: Politics, Patriotism, and Assimilation Esther M. Morgan-Ellis 25. A ""Badge of Americanism"": Group Singing as Political Expression in the Early United States Laura Lohman 26. Singing at Ellis Island Dorothy Glick Maglione 27. Community Singing in Flint and Baltimore, 1917-1920 Esther M. Morgan-Ellis and Alan L. Spurgeon 28. The Disney Chorus: Singing Along to the Studio's Forging of American Musical Identity Gregory Camp 29. Spectacle and Empire: Imagined Community and the Crystal Palace Handel Festivals Charles Edward McGuire 30. Estonian singing traditions as an impetus for community building and expressing Estonian cultural heritage in Australia Naomi Cooper Part VI. Transgressing Borders, Seeking Asylum Introduction to Part VI. Transgressing Borders, Seeking Asylum Kay Norton 31. The Voices of Hope: A Traveling Miracle Susan Bishop 32. Community Singing as Counterculture in a Women's Prison Amanda Weber 33. Border Transgressions: Song, Story, and Communal Emilie Amrein and André de Quadros 34. Singing, Suffering, and Liberation in the Concentration Camps of the South African War Erin Johnson-Williams 35. Music, Emotion, and Asylum: Wellbeing Mapped Through Choral Singing Jane W. Davidson, Benjamin P. Leske, and Amanda E. Krause 36. Selectively Staging the ""Beloved Community"": Sacred Harp Singing and Racial Politics in the Folk Revival Jesse P. Karlsberg Part VII. Singing and Political Action Introduction to Part VII. Singing and Political Action Esther M. Morgan-Ellis 37. New Firebombs in Old Bottles: Social Mobilization and Cultural Resonance of Protest Songs Marek Payerhin 38. From ""Preguntitas sobre Dios"" to ""Solo le pido a Dios"": Protest and Piety in Latin American Community Singing Marcell Silva Steuernagel 39. March for the Beloved: A Brief History of a South Korean Protest Song Jarryn Ha 40. ""Cielito Lindo"" or ""Son de la Negra""?: Mariachi, Latinidad, and the Trump Administration Cameo Flores 41. Youth, Group Singing, and Peacebuilding in Urban Zimbabwe Simbarashe Gukurume 42. The Role of Hate Songs among Israeli Maccabi Tel Aviv Football Fans: The Entrapping Loop of Hatred Moshe Bensimon and Shiran Hen Part VIII. New Paradigms Introduction to Part VIII. New Paradigms Kay Norton 43. Music and Human Flourishing in Christian Communities Nathan Myrick, Benjamin Gessner, and Johnathan Alvarado 44. By the Rivers of Babylon: Re-membering Community through the Affordance of Congregational Singing in Greek Orthodox Churches in the United States Alexander K. Khalil 45. Community Singing, the Church of England, and Spirituality: The Singer, the Song, and the Singing June Boyce-Tillman 46. Top-Down and Bottom-Up Processes of Entrainment in Communal Singing Guy Hayward 47. From Art Music to Heart Music: The Place of the Composer in Community Singing Fiona Evison Index"
Esther M. Morgan-Ellis is Associate Professor of Music History at the University of North Georgia, where she also directs the orchestra and coaches the old-time string band. She studies participatory music-making traditions of the past and present, employing both historical and ethnographic methodologies. She has published on the American community singing movement, mediated sing-alongs, Sacred Harp singing, old-time string band music, and music history pedagogy, and is also active as a cellist, fiddler and fiddle teacher, and singer. Kay Norton is Professor of Musicology at Arizona State University. Her 2016 monograph, Singing and Wellbeing: Ancient Wisdom, Modern Proof (2016) incorporates threads from musicology, anthropology, philosophy, medical history, psychology of music, and neuroscience to argue the centrality of the melodious voice in human experience. Concurrently with that ongoing work, she presents and publishes on US American sacred music. She teaches research methodologies, gender in music, music in human experience, and nineteenth-century musical aesthetics, and is a lifelong community singer.
