I am not somebody who cries easily – especially in public, as I am of one of those stereotypically British people who were raised to have a “stiff upper lip”. This is defined by the Merriam Webster dictionary as “a steady and determined attitude or manner in the face of trouble”. However, I struggle most to hold back the tears when I attend concerts, shows or church services with talented singers performing powerful songs, especially those which have significant words which touch a spot in my personal history or resonate with me emotionally at that moment.

I wondered why live singing affects me much more than recorded voices and did a little digging on this subject, and I discovered that the University of Zurich has conducted a number of scientific experiments to research this point. One of their studies found that live performances trigger a stronger emotional response than listening to music from a device and sad songs performed live are more likely to make us cry than recorded music.

Concerts in particular stimulate emotional and imaginative processes in our brain and also connect performers with their audience.

So, when did singing begin? Historians think that the earliest singing was a simple imitation of the sounds heard in nature by prehistoric man and developed into communicative sounds as language was created.

Anthropologists believe the development of a lowered larynx, which is a relatively recent aspect of human evolution, contributed to this since it makes articulation of speech possible by effectively making the front wall of the pharynx from a flexible lower tongue.

Early music began as folk music and there is evidence that ancient Mesopotamian cultures that thrived from 3500 to 500 B.C. considered music an art form with professional musicians and liturgical music.

The oldest known documented song, a Sumerian Hymn to Creation, dates back to around 800 B.C.

Egyptian musical culture existed by the 4th millennium B.C., and there are drawings of large choruses singing during this era.

The ancient Greeks had a strong folk music culture, and singers began to be teamed up with dancers in literature. In ancient Rome singing was primarily instrumental and often military in nature.

Religion developed the tradition of singing during worship and in the Jewish religion we know that the Psalms of David and the Song of Solomon were sung in ancient times. Communal singing unifies worshippers in many religions and was a very important part of early Christian worship as an aid to teaching lessons, stories and morality to common folks who were almost all illiterate.

Singing became part of the church’s rituals, and the development of sacred music owes a lot to the Roman Catholic Church.

Pictures and tapestries from the Middle Ages, as well as the stories of Chaucer in his fourteenth century Canterbury Tales, show that singing was very much part of the European culture. Medieval minstrels travelled around and performed at royal courts and were a great source of entertainment. After the Industrial Revolution, true folk music began to wane in popularity. Music of the Victorian era and the early 20th century was that of the music hall and vaudeville, as well as waltz music and operettas for the more educated classes. In the United States, minstrel shows performed the compositions of songwriters such as Stephen Foster. In the 1890s, a new group of New York City-based song publishers collectively known as Tin Pan Alley emerged, creating the first popular American music and song-publishing industry. Over the next half century its lyricism was combined with European operetta in a new kind of theater play known as the musical.

Onto modern times and the development of operetta in a new kind of theater play known as the musical.

Onto modern times and the development of popular music. Unlike traditional folk music which evolves over time through the process of oral transmission, popular music is written by known individuals, usually professionals, and comes out as a finished product. This gets us to the various songwriters and musicians we can all name associated with various decades throughout the late 20th century.

This little journey through the history of song now leads me to my own personal favorite and the best decade in the history of music which is, of course, the 1980s. In particular, I am a sucker for the power ballads that dominated this era. These ballads are defined as “a slow and emotional rock song, usually about love, sung with powerful emotions.” While different opinions abound about what was the first true power ballad, a number of sources point to Styx’s Lady from their 1973 album Styx II. An online search also shows lots of opinions about the “top ten power ballads of all time”, but for me the top two on the list are definitely Prince’s Purple Rain and Heart’s Alone.

There is a lot more information at www.sciencedaily.com, www.britannica. com and www.ultimateclassicrock.com I say goodbye this week with a quote from Maria Van Trapp, the Austrian 20th Century author whose memoir became the basis of The Sound of Music, “Music acts like a magic key, to which the most tightly closed heart opens.”

God bless America!

 Lesley grew up in London, England and made Georgia her home in 2009. She can be contacted at lesley@francis.com or via her full-service marketing agency at www. lesleyfrancispr.com