Well-being through music: the humanly ‘harmonised’ sound

Echoing the famous statement of the British social anthropologist and ethnomusicologist John Blacking (1973), who defined music as ‘the humanly organised sound’, this short essay attempts to delineate the basic coordinates of the relationship occurring between the ‘art of sounds’ and wellbeing. This will be done by reinterpreting some of the most influential studies oriented towards the observation of socio-psychological issues of music, with a particular focus on the power of emotional representation in the experience of choral music. I will present the case study of the musical practice of ‘multipart singing’, based on forms of improvised harmonisation, which can be found in some regions of the Mediterranean and, more specifically, it is spread over three of the Ionian Islands: Corfu, Zakynthos and Kefalonia. Traditional singers usually gather in groups by means of performative processes and by activating musical behaviours that make them achieve a strong symbolic representation of identity. The ‘collective resonance’, ‘harmony’ or the ‘koùrdhisma’ (i.e. tuning) – as they say – reached through their choral singing are basic concepts to enter the logic behind this unique oral musical tradition, which – while gathering people in the same place – give them the chance to improve their well-being by making music together.