As a lifelong lover and teacher of music, Ardelle Ries was dismayed when COVID-19 struck in 2020, swiftly silencing group singing.
“For music educators around the world who passionately believe that singing heals body, mind and spirit, a global ‘no singing’ decree was like a nightmare,” the University of Alberta music professor recalls.
Curtailed because of the disease’s airborne transmission, singing was suddenly perceived as a high-risk activity. Four years on, Ries worries that it’s become an unintended, lingering casualty of the pandemic — particularly among children.
The pandemic posed many barriers to singing, by shutting down concerts, forcing private and classroom lessons to go online, and muffling music classes, she says.
“During COVID, teachers would often tell children, ‘You can only hum, I don’t want to hear your voice.’ Such negative musical experiences in childhood can really have an impact; children aren’t going to try singing, and they’ll avoid musical engagement.”
Helping “rebuild and recover” music programs
In an effort to tune into how youngsters are feeling, Ries, based at the U of A’s Augustana Campus, is leading a research project studying the effects the pandemic may have had on their attitudes toward singing.
The goal is to help singing and music programs “rebuild and recover” from COVID, Ries says.
The challenges posed by the pandemic took a heavy toll on music education, she adds.
“Between 2020 and now, a number of music programs in many schools and communities did not survive, and if they did, enrolment is down,” Ries says.
“There’s really a bubble of kids who went through music programs as youngsters, but now as teens, they’re not participating in school choirs, they’re not taking singing lessons in the community; singing is not something they are interested in.”
That’s a huge loss to children’s well-being, she says.
“There’s lots of evidence that singing provides psychological, physiological, emotional, social and spiritual benefits. Musical engagement and singing is a basic form of human expression that we all have a right to experience; it’s a part of our DNA.”
Music education is crucial to child development, especially between the ages of five and 14, when “musical identity is established,” Ries adds.
“If children don’t have the experience of music in educational, family or community settings, they will not engage in music and musical activity or something more targeted, like singing.”
“Music is deeply important to children”
For the research, which began in 2022 and concludes in 2025, Ries and her team of students gathered the thoughts of more than 150 Alberta children through interviews as well as online surveys. They are summarized in a documentary short film featuring interviews with one another about why they liked singing, along with clips performing together.
While the researchers are still analyzing their findings, “It’s become abundantly clear that music is deeply important to the children,” Ries says. “The vast majority expressed a love for singing and for music.”
Other main findings showed that as the kids grew older, they became more self-conscious about their voices. Understanding that dynamic could help schools “guide music curriculum around awareness of how children change their attitudes towards music and singing.”
As well, it became clear that music programs in schools “struggled during the pandemic and continue to struggle,” Ries says.
“The kids were largely critical of their experience with music in school,” she notes. “They said they don’t sing in school, or they don’t have a special music teacher. Others told us all they do is listen to music. So there is something lacking in terms of singing engagement and quality curriculum.”
It also became apparent that family, school and community environments play major roles in children developing an appreciation for singing, she adds.
“For example, if there are positive experiences with singing in school, and community programs like choirs or events like concerts to attend, that increases a child’s probability of developing a healthy singing identity.”
Letting children tell their own stories
Ries plans to share the research findings and the film with school boards as a tool they could use to shape curriculum “to help kids get fired up about singing.”
It was important to allow the children to tell their own story through the research, Ries adds.
“Using their voices directly may help schools and school boards really understand the need to have music programs. In a time when budgets are tight and decisions need to be made about what to cut, it’s fundamental to understand that singing is important to the children.”
More broadly, Ries hopes the findings, which are being shared at various conferences, can enhance training for music educators and provide evidence-based support for music programs. She also says the research could help inform parents, arts administrators and policy-makers, and support concert venues.
The research reinforces the importance of singing and music for everyone, she adds.
“There’s a general belief out there that singing is a banal thing that not everybody can do. We live in a star culture where only certain people are considered talented, that only people who sound like Taylor Swift are singers, so singing has been pushed into a corner.
“It’s important to remind people that music impacts us as a whole person, and that it’s not just for a select few. Overall, we’re hoping for a ‘singing renaissance’ that encourages more of it at home, in schools, in the community and in health-care facilities.”
The research was funded through a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council grant, a Kule Institute for the Advancement of Scholarship (KIAS)/Alberta Teachers’ Association Research Collaboration Grant, the KIAS Collaborative Outreach Grant, the University of Alberta President’s Grant for the Creative and Performing Arts, and the University of Alberta Endowment Fund for the Future and Support for the Advancement of Scholarship.
Ries conducted the research alongside U of A Faculty of Education graduate student Stephanie Schuurman-Olson, and undergraduate research assistants Melissa Hiebert, Anna Wiebe, Hannah Nichol and Chloe Shantz.