Greetings from Portugal, where my crew and I are making good progress!
Occasionally I'm going to be sharing what I'm listening to at sea. Because music really is key in lifting us up and connecting us with others in hard times. Just take a look at sea shanties.
Sea shanties are work songs that were created by sailors aboard merchant ships, usually sung in accompaniment of hard labour such as hoisting the sails or raising the anchor.
“They’re very, very repetitive and fairly upbeat, uplifting tunes and melodies that people can very quickly join and sing together. The melody and the rhythm are designed to match the activities that are going on.”
Why do work songs help with hard labour?
Part of what makes work songs useful is simply keeping everyone in time with each other: everyone pulls on the rope to the beat of the music, and the work becomes physically much easier.
But it’s not just that. A simple chant of ‘heave-ho’ or ‘one, two, three’ could keep people in time. The musical element helped peoples to bond and work better as a team.
Music provides a sense of togetherness that has been useful all through human history.
People like to engage in collective musical activities and sea shanties are very, very easy to pick up and sing along with. And if you’re singing along with it, then you’re immediately engaged and you’re part of it. And that in itself connects you to everyone else that’s doing it.
