The Musical Fitness Movement: Advocating for Music in Every Child’s Day with Ann Kay| 172

Welcome back to the Crescendo Music Education Podcast. Today, we’re continuing our conversation with Ann Kay in Part 2 of this important discussion on early childhood music education.

In Part 1, Ann shared the research, results, and philosophy behind daily singing and musical fitness for young learners. In this episode, we shift the focus to advocacy, collaboration, and what it really takes to create lasting change. Ann and Debbie explore how music educators, classroom teachers, therapists, and parents can work together to make music a natural part of everyday life — not an add-on.

You’ll hear about Ann’s vision for a Musical Fitness Movement, the role of simplicity and consistency in music education, and why small habits, repeated daily, can transform classrooms, communities, and children’s lives.

If you’re passionate about early childhood education, literacy, and helping every child experience the joy and benefits of music, this conversation will inspire and energise you.

Let’s jump back in with Ann Kay.

Links Mentioned in the Episode:

🎙️ Episode 48 – A Missing Link to Literacy Part 1

🎙️ Episode 49 – A Missing Link to Literacy Part 2

💻 Ann Kay’s Website and Resources:

• Rock ‘n’ Read Project
• Musical Fitness Assessment

Where to find me: 

Crescendo Community Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/crescendocommunity
Official Crescendo Page: https://www.facebook.com/CrescendoMusicEd/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/CrescendoMusicEd
Twitter: https://twitter.com/crescendomusic
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-o-shea-62a3741b/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/CrescendoDeb

Introduction

Gday, I’m Debbie O’Shea and this is the Crescendo Music Education Podcast – Episode 172.

This podcast is being recorded on the lands of the Turrbal people. I acknowledge them as the traditional owners of the land and pay my respects to Elders past, present and emerging. They were the first music makers on this land.

Debbie O’Shea  

Thank you for tuning in to, listening or watching, because this is on YouTube as well if you didn’t know, to the Crescendo Music Education Podcast and I am about to finish my chat with Ann Kay all about her book A Song a Day and how effective a good singing voice based regular music education program is and how that can benefit young children learning to read. The proof is there. I think you’re going to love listening to the second part of my talk with Ann.

Reflecting on Purpose, Creativity, and Lasting Impact

Debbie O’Shea  

Welcome to the Crescendo Music Education Podcast and today I have Ann Kay joining me again. Hello, Ann.

Ann Kay  

Hi, Debbie, thank you, thank you from across the world. It’s snowy here.

Debbie O’Shea  

It’s really hot here. 

Ann Kay  

I love that. 

Debbie O’Shea  

Today we’re still talking about Ann’s wonderful book and her work, but we’re also talking about how just the small steps that you take, every single one of you, everyone listening, has a ripple effect. We know all those lovely sayings with ripples and butterflies and things, but it’s actually true and I think that Ann and I are kindred spirits. We’re certainly passionate about our advocacy and how we affect long term change and the way we think. So I think with this in common, our shared belief that we’re making changes little by little. So if you didn’t listen to episode one, where we get into what’s in Ann’s book in more depth, go back and have a listen to that. But today, I guess I just want to talk more philosophically, because Ann has purchased a copy of The Stalagmite Effect which I wrote in 2025, early 2025 and you reached out to me and said that it resonated with you, which, it’s so exciting as an author to be told that. So I’d just love to hear what sort of made you pause and reflect, or what surfaced for you about your work and how things I said resonated with you.

Ann Kay  

I love your book and part of that is that there’s no magic pill. I always say there’s no magic pill, but musicians are smart folk. Your book is about being open to change and finding wisdom by going through all these different decades of experiences as a music teacher and as a human because your book has a lot about music making and music teaching and the joys of it and the some of the struggles. But it is in the struggle that I think that wisdom comes. One time I said, Oh, on my gravestone, I think I want two words joyful and wise. Then I thought about it for a week and I thought, Nah, I don’t think I’m going to get the wise part, because I think you have to go through some struggle, and I don’t know if I want to go through that much. But yes, life is struggle, and life isn’t fair necessarily. But can we glean from others? And so your book has quotes from a lot of people. Reminded me, to bring my mother into it. She’s always said she’s going to live to 100 and I’m like, oh I don’t know if I want to. She said, Well, if you don’t want to, you won’t. I think of that with your book, small things like drinking a glass of water or two every morning, which is a habit you mentioned and I already do. I think of my life as little habits, and they change. But little habits, I exercise, I actually was an athlete, tennis competitor, as well as a musician. So that idea that you can’t be an athlete and a musician, no, but it takes a lot of time, but it’s small, practice every day, whatever that is. Musicians are my heroes, because we learn that very early and we learn that music making is collaborative, and a lot in your book is about collaborating and giving honour and respect to the people you’ve learned from and worked with.

Debbie O’Shea  

I think that’s very important. Possibly one of the things that irritates me occasionally about somebody that may be in my circle is if somebody is taking credit for, like, it’s not a solo journey dudes. You’ve got to give credit to the people that have come before you, that you have learnt from, that you’ve built on their ideas. We’re not starting from scratch, are we? It’s funny, you mentioned your gravestone. I’ve always said, I don’t think I put in the book what I said I would have on my gravestone. This is what I want on mine. Are you ready? 

Ann Kay  

Yes.

Debbie O’Shea  

She was not bored.

Ann Kay  

Oh, that reminds me of I Will Not Live an Unlived Life.

Debbie O’Shea  

Oh, that’s a good one. 

Ann Kay  

My partner, we’ve been together 18 years. We were both divorced. I said, when I was dating people in the 2000s I was like, I have to say, I’m endlessly fascinating to myself. He’s like, why are we even going out? And I said, Well, my life is better with you. It’s more interesting. But I have a passion for what I do, and it has different forms, but I’m always finding something new to learn and to do, and that’s, of course, why you and I resonate. You know, life is like, oh, what’s next? 

Debbie O’Shea  

What’s next? What can we do? What can we do to make this positive impact and to help that long term advocacy? How can we convince people about the power of music for our kids?

Ann Kay  

Oh, and that was so impressive. In your book, you talk about all different ways you’ve been able to build music programs, large singing things, composing, all sorts of things in there. It struck me how creative you are, but you also work really hard. So I think it was Peter Webster who wrote a book about creativity and he said creativity would be too much work if it were not such a passionate endeavour.

Debbie O’Shea  

Oh, that is a good quote and it’s so true. I do cop a bit of flack because, well, like at the moment, at time of recording, and this episode won’t air til 2026 but we’re on our Christmas break, and I have to do my Crescendo work in my Christmas break, because when I’m working full time in schools, there’s very little time for anything else. Okay, not exactly copping flack for it but most of the people in my circle say I hope you have a break Debbie. But I sort of am. I’m having a break talking to a fellow passionate educator in America. Isn’t that a break?

Ann Kay  

It is. And you know, I’ve connected with people. There’s a woman by my name. She goes by her middle name, Maria. But someone said, You need to meet this woman. I said, Where does she live? Saudi Arabia. Her name is Ann Kay. Ann Maria Kay. She goes by Maria Kay. So the first time we talked for like three hours. We’re 12-14 hours apart, whatever we are in time. She has studied early childhood music making and she hadn’t finished her doctorate. She has now, she’s traveling all over to Turkey and all sorts of places giving talks. She comes at it from educator, not a music teacher. So we meet in the middle about brain development, of course, so passionate about that. Then a woman who started Upstart in Scotland, which is the whole idea of children going to school of course, Pre-K and whatever, but formal education starting at age seven. Not try to force three year olds to write with pencils. Play based learning all the way up until you formalise. They’ve got parliamentarians that are trying to pass some new laws. There’s a big lobby. So by connecting with people like us who have these big ideas. I decided I can’t do it alone. I need to get to know people. Also the idea of boiling something down there’s wisdom and simplicity. The book I wrote A Song a Day is very simple, very simple, very straightforward steps. It’s not rocket science.

Debbie O’Shea  

Yes, but it is rocket science. It takes a lot of skill and knowledge to put things simply and Okay, another Kodály quote pops in my head that “only the best composers should compose for children”, because it’s not, oh, look, that’s just a kid’s song. I can write a kid’s song. No, you can’t. That’s one of the most difficult things to do in the world and the kids’ songs that are still around for hundreds and hundreds of years have survived because of the beauty of the simplicity. So I will say it is rocket science to put something in a really simple form. What’s the name of this play person that you’re talking about? Because, oh, now it’s a long way off and I probably shouldn’t say it publicly, but I’m going to, would you like to know the working title of my next book?

Ann Kay  

Yes.

Debbie O’Shea  

Let the Children Play. 

Ann Kay  

Oh my gosh. 

Debbie O’Shea  

I would really like to look into, it’s been a passion of mine for a long time and I’m going to say this publicly, I cannot stand the pushing down of formal learning down more and more. Little kids trying to hold pencils and write when they should be playing in the sandpit, singing songs, playing games, building with blocks. They don’t have the fine motor skills yet to learn to write. The people that are pushing formal learning. Do you know what I mean by formal learning? Pushing it further down. They don’t understand about children. It drives me insane. So I’m very passionate about that too, which is really connected to the music, isn’t it?

Building a Movement for Musical Fitness

Ann Kay  

Her name is Sue Palmer and she was the founder of Upstart. So I’m meeting with people around the world and country who have started movements and this is where I think we’re at now. I realised I could help people be better music teachers and I know a lot of great music teachers, but in Minneapolis public schools, they get to see the kids once a week. 

Debbie O’Shea  

Yep, here too.

Ann Kay  

Once a week kids get to eat. That’s kind of how I look at it. People look at me, What are you talking about? I said if we were all singing every day in our regular classrooms, we would have a happier, more adjusted, wonderful place. We just haven’t figured that out. It is not the music teacher, it is the behaviour of the child, but we need more music teacher time. Programs have still gotten cut here. It’s a terrible battle and I believe that if the population understood the ramifications or effects of music making, music skills, singing and music skills, to be specific, on young brain development and the ancillary effects of reading, I think we could turn everything around. But music teachers we should be talking in terms of music competence, or I call it musical fitness. So we’re trying to start a movement in Minnesota called The Musical Fitness Movement and it’s not about doing push ups. We’ve got emotional fitness. We’ve got physical fitness. Let’s have musical fitness. Now we can argue all day about what that means. That’s why I say basic music skills. How far we go in those skills? But the children who have basic music skills, their brains are different and they’re more able. So we need to start early. So how could we get this information to parents? So we’re planning this all over the US, I don’t know about Australia, but we’re having these Science of Reading summits because people are examining the way they’re teaching reading and curriculums are being thrown out and new curriculums are coming in. There’s a lot of attention on the science, what the scientists say about how brains learn to read, but nobody’s talking about what the scientists say about how brains learn music and that there is some link to the reading.  A musical brain is a better reading brain. Okay, well, how do we get this to the public? How do we get this to the parents? The preschools? I’ve decided it’s by holding a big summit. We’re going to hire a neuroscientist or two to come to Minnesota and we’re going to hold a summit, and they can tell the people at the summit, all the early childhood organisations, the reading organisations, the music organisations. So my goal is to get it rolling and then to form a coalition, musical fitness coalition of organisations that will continue the work and write action plans once they’ve heard the research. I don’t think you can walk away without not knowing that you should probably do something. It is not up to the music education profession. It is not, it is up to us to speak in ways that could start a movement and by only having specialists, we don’t think about, okay, these are my violin students, these are my band students. No, this is a way of thinking that’s very different than most music teachers came through the systems. We learned how to teach music to the kids that we have. This is a way of thinking about all people from prenatal on, and what could our society look like if everybody was making music and making it competently.

Debbie O’Shea  

That is a very long term plan, isn’t it?

Ann Kay  

Yeah, so my goal is to hold it in the fall, September 2026, and we have many supporters already, organisations that are supporting the idea. We have an institute for the developing brain at the University of Minnesota here and I’ve met with them. I met with the Minnesota Orchestra education folks.  I’ve been meeting with people. So to me, we don’t do anything without partners. Everything is to me, collaborative, and it takes more time to collaborate, but it is always worth it. The sum of the parts is greater than the parts.

Debbie O’Shea  

Absolutely.

Ann Kay  

So we have to. Our national organisation is called NAFME, National Association for Music Education, the largest organisation in our nation. I spoke to their advocacy person. She’s the state advocacy person and I said, I just want you to know we’re starting something in our little state, and I want it to grow. And where did it come from? Well, when I grew up, if you asked people if physical exercise was good for their health, you know what people would say, especially girls, I didn’t get that special gift. Maybe for athletes they have to do exercises. If you saw somebody running down the street, you might think there’s an emergency. No one jogged. What are you talking about? Running? No the average person did not know that exercise was good for health and well being. 60 some years later. Well, what happened was an orthopedic doctor in New York developed a physical fitness assessment, very simple. Can you touch the floor? Can you lie on your back and hold your legs up for 10 seconds? Core strength and flexibility. They tested 1000s of us kids and 1000s of European kids, and what did they find? The European kids were pretty fit, but the US kids, only about 50% could pass this little fitness test. Our president at the time was President Eisenhower and it was the 1950s and we were in the Cold War and our government was afraid we’re going to go to war. Well, and you got soft Americans, are they going to be able to fight? Wow. So Eisenhower established a council, Presidential Council on Youth Fitness and under John F Kennedy, President Kennedy followed Eisenhower, that council changed its name so it was for all people, not just youth, adults, too. They published a free curriculum for schools, exercises. They gave a presidential award if you could pass the test at the end of the year, you got a certificate. That program is still in place today, 60 some years later. I will say that probably was the spark that transformed Americans perception about physical fitness and exercise that it should be for all people. Now you could say, oh, yeah, I know it’s good. I should get more exercise. That’s what you’ll hear people say now. If I went up to somebody with a microphone, okay, is music making good for your health and well being and brain development and reading, they’d say, Oh, I didn’t get that special gift or talent. I’m like, 65 years ago, we said that about exercise. So why not? We’ve got physical fitness, now we all know that’s good for us. We don’t know that music making is good for our health and well being. Oh, maybe for music therapy. I’m like, no, no, this is for brain development and health and well being, certainly. So that’s the idea. That’s why I said musical fitness and people are like, Oh, what is that? Well, it’s being able to do some basic musical skills.

Engaging Parents and Advocating for Music Education

Debbie O’Shea  

Well, you have to keep me updated on this summit, because I can do whatever we can from our end to radiate that out too. Also, I must get you connected with Together Sing, which is hopefully sending that same message. Rock n Read, could be a partner and because that’s all just about telling people how powerful music is, and it should be part of our lives, and it should include that, but it is hard sometimes to keep the motivation. When you have frustrations with systems and processes and when you know something is so valuable and you keep hitting roadblocks. Is there a particular way you keep motivated or is it just the passion is so strong you’re just going to come back to it. What I’m saying is, okay you’ve just hit a big brick wall about something, funding or whatever, and you go, bang, and you go, why do I keep hitting my head against this big brick wall, or different brick walls. How do you keep yourself motivated?

Ann Kay  

I think I learned a long time ago that I needed to talk with parents. So when I was teaching, I remember going to a first grade open house and the regular teachers were talking and they said I could have three minutes, and it was just the First Grade parents there for open house night. We have these open houses in the fall when kids start. Oh, I’ve got three minutes with these parents, so I got up there and I said, I love teaching your First Graders. This year our goal is that by the end of the year, everyone’s going to be singing in tune. Don’t worry. If you don’t sing in tune, that’s okay. Your children can still learn to sing in tune. Some children already know how to sing in tune when they walked in the door in First Grade, but that’s our number one goal. Well, at the end of this open house, there were some parents gathered around the other regular teachers, the First Grade teachers, and I had a receiving line. This taught me something. I had 15 parents waiting to talk to me. Parents cried. A mother cried. I’ve never been able to sing well and then another one, oh my, They just love coming to the music class. I was just bowled over, touched a nerve. Yeah, you can do that. But first of all, it always starts that they love the music class. They love what we’re doing. But then I had goals for kids. Then I say, Okay, kids, this is what singing in tune is. This is what it isn’t. A child would be singing and I wouldn’t match them, and I’d say, am I singing exactly like that? So they have to know what their goal is but what I didn’t realise was it touched a nerve in parents. That reminds me of a big movement that happened in Hungary. Since both of us were trained in the Kodály approach and I ran a certification program for 18 summers for teachers. There’s a book on assessment in the classroom, a music assessment. It’s an Oxford publication. I wrote, co-wrote a chapter. I was asked to co-write the chapter on the Kodály approach. Doing that I went back and I looked at what Kodály actually said. Well, he was a linguist. He was a linguist and musician. He understood this connection between speech, language and music so intricately. But what I was most interested in is when they started music in Primary schools in Hungary, where the children had music every day, instead of the two half hours a week, they had everyday music in their school. It was an experiment and it was taught with syllables and ta’s and titi’s and the Hungarian Department of Education, did a study of those kids as they got older. Supposedly, I don’t know how they studied them or what the methods were, they outscored all the other kids at other schools, in all the academics, according to Yano Adam. Yano said that parents found out about this and within 20 years, or 25 years, there were 130 primary schools because parents wanted them. Wow, we’ve forgotten this, if parents knew that music making is highly helpful for brain development, I think they would do something different.

Debbie O’Shea  

Yes, now you bring up parents, I think parent power is very underestimated. We’ve been talking about that with our campaign, because we’re working to save music educators here in our state, because we’ve had an eroding of that. I’m part of the campaign to save that and I think it’s a very underused resource, is our parents. Okay, you and I are pretty passionate Ann, but if I said to you, who is even more passionate about that little person in front of us than us? The answer is their parents. So why are we not harnessing parent power? 

Ann Kay  

We have to speak differently, though. We have to speak about skills and what those skills do for the brain, that’s what my experience has been. When I say, Who knew that a child who can’t keep a steady beat is likely to struggle with reading that comes out of the neuroscience labs. On our website, there is a bibliography. You can download a bibliography of 10 pages of research. I keep it current, neurological research and other research about the effects of music making on brain development and subsequent achievement and there is a ton of data. There’s so much data that I’m just shocked why we haven’t been able to make more inroads about music education. But I think that part of it is we’re our worst enemies in the way we talk about music making. We’ll sometimes say, oh that child’s not so good in these other things. They can shine in the music class. Well, yeah, but that is not the reason we do music. I mean, so we’ve grasped at a lot of different ways to explain music making, but I’ve boiled it down to me, which very simplistic, it’s competence, so I call it fitness. Musical fitness. 

Debbie O’Shea  

That makes sense. 

Ann Kay  

Musical fitness develops the brain and the side benefit. I know it seems like for music teachers that we’re going in the back door. One of my mentors, said, these people who keep saying, we do music to raise reading. I said, No, we do music making for, we probably could name 25-30 reasons, but aren’t you at all concerned that what it does for brain development? So one of my heroes, I don’t know if I talked about this, Eric Kandel wrote a book called In Search of Memory. So one of the things we do make music making for is auditory memory. Well, he was a research psychiatrist and he was shunned and made fun of, and he lost friends. Sometimes I have actually lost some friends over some of my stands for all children musically competent or musically fit. We do not do music for reading. No, we do music for music sake. Like, really, do we do math for math sake? Do we do English for English sake? No, we do it for human sake and shouldn’t we be interested? So Eric Kandel found out from his study of one foot large snails or slugs, that he could see the neurons with his naked eye. So you stimulate the tail of this slug or snail, and what would happen? He would watch chemical, biological in the brain. What happened for that creature to have a memory form of the tail and he documented it. Okay. People thought he was nuts. Fast forward. He won a Nobel Prize. 

Debbie O’Shea  

Wow. 

Ann Kay  

He said psychiatrists should know that we’re dealing with memories that are maybe causing problems for people. Shouldn’t we know all those memories are formed? Yes, and so he wrote an autobiography for that, and it’s called In Search of Memory. He says, so why wouldn’t music teachers want to know the brain development that happens when we become musically competent? Yeah, it is very helpful, not only for music making. So I say it’s a both and, we’re going to develop better musicians, but we’re going to also develop people who are more able in a lot of different ways. The one that’s been researched the most is Reading.

Debbie O’Shea  

It is definitely both Ann, and I think that a lot of, just an opinion, a lot of the perhaps oppositional antipathy with what you’re saying is that, yes, it’s music for music sake and maybe a threatening of your own position as the music expert. But honestly, I will do anything to help music. One of my current schools, I’m developing a whole suite of stuff and I’m going to the Prep teachers because they’re the most open, I guess. Would you do this? Would you do this? I’m putting stuff on the shared site for them and I’m making little videos if they don’t feel confident. I want them to be doing music and the feedback that I’m getting from them saying it’s, oh, isn’t it great that they’re doing this? We love our music. Yes, of course you do. So we’ve just got to keep going and you’ve got to not chase those quick fixes. Just build a little bit, a little bit at a time. We cannot underestimate the impact that we have as music educators, well, educators generally, but music educators every little bit that our listeners can do, put something in their newsletter. Speak at you have a different name for it. When you speak to parents.

Ann Kay  

Open house. 

Debbie O’Shea  

We don’t call it open house. We have parent teacher information nights. That’s really creative, isn’t it? But get in there. Just keep sending those little messages. To draw a parallel between your book and mine, which is sort of completely different audiences. It’s all about incremental change, isn’t it, and not losing sight of our vision.

Vision, Daily Habits, and a Call to Action

Ann Kay  

So vision mission drives everything for me, for myself, too. Every year, in the New Year, I pick a new word to drive me. So I believe that how we’re being goes into new doing and then it results in having things, but if we do it backwards, I want to have this goal, and so I have to do things I really hate, and then I have to be a fussy person. I’m wrestling with my word, my main word last year was centred. So if I’m centred, what am I doing? Doing out of being centred and then what do I have? That’s to be revealed, what I get out of this? Another thing is to have goals. I actually have goals too. But I think the important thing is how I’m being. I’m wrestling with the word magnetic because I want to draw people to this idea of musical fitness for every child and not be lecturing them or telling them, I want it to be attractive. Children who are making music are happier. The idea is that it would be attractive, or like an induction stove that works with magnets. You know, it’s very fast. 

Debbie O’Shea  

It is a good word. Okay, I’ll share. Last year for the first time, I decided to choose a word, but I couldn’t decide, I actually had to have two. So my last year’s words were influence and inspire.

Ann Kay  

Aha, I like the inspire one especially.

Debbie O’Shea  

So this year, I’m still working on 2026 and as I’ve confessed in the episode before this, we’re actually recording this, actually, for me, it’s Christmas Eve. We are recording this on Christmas Eve and it will be aired early in 2026 so I’ve developed two mantras for myself for next year. Alright, I’ll read them to you “as I advocate for music education, Crescendo grows in impact and income”. 

Ann Kay  

Aha.

Debbie O’Shea  

For me, it has to include the income element for the longevity of my passion. That’s it. My second one is “I do meaningful work with kindness, creativity and persistence, and it supports me too”. So I have two mantras, and I’m still trying to decide on my word. 

Ann Kay  

I love it. I will put a plug in for reaching to parents in any way, shape or form. We got a grant from a neighbouring town where we put on an afternoon of music making for families of young children, and I had English and Swedish songs and dances. Then another group came that was Spanish, and then another guy came, and he’s Somali, so songs in Somali, we have 80,000 Somali people here who are immigrants. Actually, I think that was the hit. He was young and vibrant. We did dancing. It was really fun. The pitch to parents was that this is something to do every day in every language. I did a workshop, oh, and then we developed music kits. I call them Sing Today, Read Forever, and they have little instruments and cards in them that say, sing, sjunga, cantar in three languages. Then why sing? Some of the research about singing and what it does for the brain development. Then how to do it, like how to download a free metronome on your phone? Tick, tick, tick, tick, can your child pat the beat? So giving them tools that are free. So all of those cards are on the website rocknreadproject.org for anybody. Also a musical fitness assessment that I developed is on there for free. So parents are like, Oh, this is something I can do in any language with any music skills, can be developed.

Debbie O’Shea  

Oh, I love that and I know all my listeners are going to go, oh, Quick, get onto that website. So you guys can google it, but we will put it in the show notes. If you’re looking for the show notes, it’s on my website crescendo.com.au so get into the show notes. Download all that good stuff. I have so loved chatting to you Ann. I do love it, but just you give me more to do. Like, oh good, I’ve got to do this now. Oh, I’ve got to do that.

Ann Kay  

If we could envision a world where the government starts every day with a song, you go to the doctor and you say you’re kind of depressed and the doctor says, Okay, I’m going to give you a prescription. Start moving and making music. Oh, I mean, boom, that’s transformation. If we could wave our magic wand and transform into culture that music making was just a natural thing.

Debbie O’Shea  

Yes and I actually think that is your soapbox moment where music education is just part of our culture. It needs to be part of our culture again. It certainly used to be part of our culture going back, it has to be there again, doesn’t it? There’s a part of us that’s almost missing without it.

Ann Kay  

It feeds us, as we know. So now, just you know, going in the back door. Brain development is not the reason, the only reason we make music. We make music because it’s great fun and motivating and socialising and social emotional growth and all of these things. But isn’t it interesting that our brains are actually pretty agile and able and all those skills that we learn through daily practice can be used in other areas of our lives as is evidenced by The Stalagmite Effect.

Debbie O’Shea  

(laughs) Thank you, Ann. Look, I think that’s great. We all need to work on our musical fitness and helping others to understand the importance of that. I think we’ve talked about our small actions making big impact, our daily singing, and even though we are certainly not quite spring chickens anymore, okay, that does not mean that we have less passion. In fact, it gives us more power because we have that lived experience to draw on. So you and I, we are so not giving up. Everyone needs to get A Song a Day and watch this space for our impact. 

Ann Kay  

Thank you. 

Sign-off  

Thank you for joining me for this podcast. Don’t forget that you’ll find the show notes on crescendo.com.au/episode172. Also you can find the transcripts there, so you’ve got all of the details that you need. If you found this podcast useful, I’d really love it if you share the link with a colleague. Remember, all I can be is the best version of me. All you can do is be the best you. We’ll meet again. I hope we will, bye.

Just for Laughs

As we know, laughter relieves stress. Don’t lose sight of the funny side of life. I bought a thesaurus yesterday, when I got home, all the pages were blank. Oh, I have no words for how upset I am.