Below are an initial set of resources for anyone considering our training or interested in singing for lung health and singing for breathing.
Click on a box to download the resource or visit a website.
Key information
Reading and Resources
Singing for Breathing CD
This is a resource for patients with chronic lung conditions, as well as respiratory specialists and singing leaders. Recommended for pre-training.
Available from Royal Brompton & Harefield Hospitals Charity website.
This is a Voice
“99 exercises to train, project and harness the power of your voice”.
An accessible introduction to how the voice works from Jeremy Fisher and Gillyanne Kayes, two of the UK’s leading vocal specialists. Recommended reading for pre-training.
Available from Amazon.co.uk
Book list
A reading list of books on singing, breathing, music therapy plus health and wellbeing.
PDF, 47K
Media coverage
Singing for Breathing on Radio 4’s PM in 2009.
Inside Health
The BBC Radio 4 programme (broadcast 7th August 2019) looks at singing for breathlessness and includes an interview with the respiratory physiologist Adam Lounde.
Available from BBC.co.uk
Time to breathe
A Lancet article by Georgina Ferry.
“Breathing is essential, universal, and largely unconscious. It is endowed with spiritual significance in many cultures: the words for “spirit” and “breath” in many ancient languages share the same roots. Yet somehow the lungs have not acquired the cultural cachet of the heart.”
Read more on the Lancet website.
Think piece
Phoene’s post, “Singing with one voice?”, on the London Arts in Health Forum blog considering the importance of training for singing leaders.
On London Arts in Health Forum blog
Media coverage
Mary King interviews Phoene about the natural voice on Radio 3’s “The Choir” (2013).
The Singing Hospital
Performance by Victoria Hume and Singing for Breathing.
Royal College of Physicians, Tuesday 30th April 2019
Full performance on YouTube.
Latest research
“Group singing improves depression and life quality in patients with stable COPD: a randomized community-based trial in China.”
Available from PubMed website.
Latest research
Music and dance in chronic lung disease.
“Arts in Health interventions show potential to improve the quality of life of people with chronic lung disease. Listening to music, making music, and dance have accepted and established roles in the lives of people without chronic disease.”
