I have been pointing out for many years now that humans have been making music together ever since they could bang rocks together and grunt. Every single society in the history of humankind does this.

But a strange thing happened in North America in the early 1900s. People started listening to recorded music, deferring to professionals instead of making music themselves. People started to become embarrassed if they weren’t perfect, and you started hearing people say, “I can’t sing”. And then they didn’t sing.

I was at an international gathering, and people from different organizations started singing their countries traditional songs to each other. The Germans did. The Danes did. The Brits did. When it came to the Canadians, we had no idea what to do, because none of us were used to making music.

My feeling is that the decline in making music together, whether it be around a kitchen table, in a bar, or in a concert hall, is one of the reasons that people in North America especially feel isolated and lonely.

That’s why I encourage everyone to join a choir, pick up an instrument, and just make music no matter how little it sounds like what you hear on a CD or radio (or Spotify). It’s not the quality of the music that matters, it’s the action of collaborating with others to do it.