It is said that laughter is the best medicine and, in times of stress, hardship and crisis, we indeed see an uptick in humor, jokes and cartoons – most of them well-intended and in good taste.
One surefire way to reduce stress is laughing—which reduces stress hormones, stimulates the immune system, and helps stabilize blood pressure. In fact, one medical expert says laughing 100 times a day has the same cardio benefits as a 20-minute aerobic workout!
Another person, this time a musical expert, says “In Times of Crisis, We Need Classical Music.”
This author, not a musical expert, would go one step farther and claim that in times of crisis we need all kinds of music, all kinds of dancing (keeping your “social distance”) and singing and cheering and shouting from the rooftops balconies.
Italians, entering their seventh day of a nationwide lockdown and facing the most severe coronavirus outbreak in Europe (second only to China) are doing exactly that.
They are joining together, leaning out of their windows and standing on their balconies to sing and cheer, clap and dance, strum guitars, clang pots and pans…just make happy noise.
Jason Horowitz at the New York Times describes the event that climaxed Saturday as follows:
It started with the national anthem. Then came the piano chords, trumpet blasts, violin serenades and even the clanging of pots and pans — all of it spilling from people’s homes, out of windows and from balconies, and rippling across rooftops.
Finally, on Saturday afternoon, a nationwide round of applause broke out for the doctors on the medical front lines fighting the spread of Europe’s worst coronavirus outbreak.
“Flash mobs” all over Italy, from Turin to Naples and beyond (below), are singing the national anthem, love songs, songs of courage and solidarity, songs of comfort, reflecting the spirit of resilience — and humor — of the Italian people facing perhaps the worst crisis since World War II.
It is not only Italy that is turning to song and music to cope with the crisis they (and we) are facing.
Chris Murphy, in Celebrities Share Their Musical Gifts to Help You Get Through Self-Quarantine, asks “In these anxiety-ridden times, where can we turn for comfort?”
His answer, “Music, of course!” and he cites the examples of Yo-Yo Ma, the currently quarantined Rita Wilson and others sharing their musical talents on social media to help us get through these troubled times – a new genre aptly named “quarantuning” by Rita Wilson.
“In these days of anxiety, I wanted to find a way to continue to share some of the music that gives me comfort”, Yo-Yo Ma says.
Please listen to Yo-Yo Ma playing a composition by Antonín Dvorák, called “Going Home,” launched under the hashtag #SongsOfComfort.
Well aware of the dangers of gathering in groups and of the benefits of “social distancing,” others are offering alternatives to attending live musical performances.
The Metropolitan Opera, “in an effort to continue providing opera to its audience members…will host ‘Nightly Met Opera Streams’ on its official website to audiences worldwide.”
Read more here.
Added: But also read here how “The Music World Contends with the Pandemic” and how “[t]he most instructive thing about [a] Berlin concert dramatized what technology cannot supply: the temporary bond of purposeful community that forms under the spell of live music. The final silence was a vacuum crying to be filled.”
Regardless, now more than ever the world needs laughter and music.
