Want to get happy, be creative, and make new friends? Try karaoke!

Karaoke always frightened me.  Walking past the open door of a bar and hearing the words to Copacabana floating out into the night air, sung by someone who is clearly not Barry Manilow, gave me sweaty palms and a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.  Much like the feeling I get when I watch a bungie jumper leap off of a bridge.  I could not imagine why anyone would ever willingly subject themselves to karaoke, much less enjoy it.  

So when a friend mentioned that her company was using karaoke as a bonding exercise for new employees, I started counting the days until she was working for a new company.  And when the same friend invited my wife and I to join some other friends and visiting relatives at the Karaoke Hut a few weeks later, I immediately said…yes???

You don't have to call me Merle Haggard...anymore

WTF?  Did I really agree to suffer the humiliation of trying sing in public?  Apparently so.  From out of nowhere, my inner Steve Goodman decided he wasn't going to be left out of an evening with friends spent eating, drinking, and belting out off-tune versions of pop hits.

That is how I found myself sitting in a windowless room filled with battered leather couches, a table covered in wine bottles and cookies, lyrics scrolling across a television screen, ... and microphones.  Two ominous microphones.  Into which I was going to have to sing.  I doubled down on Steve Goodman and selected You Never Even Call Me By My Name.

I was wise to choose a funny song for my first attempt.  A recent study suggests that listening to happy music increases creativity.

Creativity was higher for participants who listened to ‘happy music’ (i.e., classical music high on arousal and positive mood) while performing the divergent creativity task, than for participants who performed the task in silence. 

According to Wikipedia, divergent creativity (or divergent thinking) typically occurs in a spontaneous, free-flowing, 'non-linear' manner, such that many ideas are generated in an emergent cognitive fashion.  So divergent creativity is for brainstorming.  Coming up with crazy new ideas.

My crazy new idea was to add Subterranean Homesick Blues to the queue.

Look out kid

How do hip-hop MCs keep up that rapid fire flow for verse after verse?  Part of the answer has to be adrenaline. Bob Dylan is no Eminem, but SHB is plenty speedy enough for a novice karaoke singer.  No time to think, the screen was counting down.  4...3...2...1... Johnny's in the basement!  I was off and running.  

Two minutes later I was panting and totally pumped!  I hit (almost) every word at (almost) the right rhythm and something resembling the melody.  The crowd cheered and clapped and laughed (in a good way).  Serious adrenaline rush.  

Probably a substantial dose of endorphins, too.  Another study found that performing music increased pain tolerance, which indicates that the performer's system is flooded with endorphins.  Interestingly, listening to music did not have the same effect.  The researchers concluded that the active performance of music generates the endorphin high.

Does the performance kick bring people closer together?  The researchers in this study thought it likely.  My wife and I took a shot at answering the question by singing one of our favorite duets.

Dirty deeds...done dirt cheap

Maybe AC/DC isn't the first group that springs to mind when you think of love.  Lust, probably.  But love?  Not so much.  So take my word for it, there is something terribly romantic about snuggling up to your sweetie and snarling along with Bon Scott.  At least my wife and I think so.

Our passionate rendition of Dirty Deeds resonated with the rest of the room.  When the call-and-response chorus kicked in, they were right there with us.  We called out the dirty deeds...they responded with the cost.  Done dirt cheap never sounded as good as it did coming back at us in that cramped little karaoke room.  Now I understand why singers on stage point their mic at the audience.  Audiences that know the words rule.

It will come as no surprise that researchers have exhaustively demonstrated that sharing music bonds people together.  The mechanism is probably the release of oxytocin, a neuropeptide that plays a role in bonding between prairie vols, dogs, and humans. 

But all the science seems to be beside the point. Or maybe it just belabors the point.  Does anyone really need to read a scientific paper to know that that they will feel happier, more creative, and more connected with their friends if they sing a song together?

Not after a night of karaoke, they won't.  In fact, the most surprising thing I learned from reading scientific studies of music and positive psychology is that there are people who get paid to play snippets of Mozart to other people and then ask them to come up with different uses for a brick.  True story.  It's called the Alternative Uses Task.

Whether you learn it in the lab or in the karaoke room, there is no doubt that music rocks.  Or rolls.  Or swings.  Or hips and hops.  Whatever.  Leave it to Friedrich Nietzsche to cut to the core of the issue. "Without music, life would be a mistake."

Drop the mic.