So, here’s a funny story for you. When I was at school, the big rumour that went round was that I had a record contract. I have literally no idea where this came from, however if it had of been true it really would have been a dream come true. Singing has always been a big part of me, but sensible Caroline decided to become an engineer as this seemed like a more reliable way to make a living. My guest today has not only devoted her career to music but made the leap into entrepreneurship to create a digital platform that allows others to harness the benefits of singing.
Timestamps:
00:02:28 Meet Xann
00:04:26 Biiah – a new way to promote workplace wellbeing
00:13:07 The holistic benefits of singing
00:16:49 Overcoming barriers, the “good voice” myth
00:19:47 Practical tips for using your voice
00:25:38 Scientific research into the benefits of singing
00:26:55 Gender stereotypes mean men are missing out
00:30:38 You don’t need to be able to read music
00:36:14 Circle singing and improvisation
00:38:28 The magic of music at Christmas
00:41:52 Local singing opportunities
00:44:13 How Xann looks after her wellbeing
00:51:20 Where to find out more about Biiah
Links:
Website: https://biiah.com/
Email: xann@biiah.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/xann-schwinn/ and https://www.linkedin.com/company/biiah-official/
Articles: https://biiah.com/resource-hub/ and https://biiah.com/2022/08/24/singing-for-wellness/
Transcript:
Caroline: Awesome. Okay, so super excited because today I have with me my lovely friend, Xann, who’s joining me all the way from America. One of the reasons why I’m really excited is singing is one of the most massive parts of my life. There is nothing that I love more than singing. You’ve created this amazing platform to bring people together with the power of our voices, and I think it’s just genius. I really wanted to share with people some of the reasons why I love it so much. We can delve into some of the aspects of that bit more in the discussion and also find out a bit more about you and how you came to be where you are today. Yeah, listeners, let’s dive in and meet Xann. To kick us off, would you be able to tell people a little bit more about your background, about what you trained in and how you’ve ended up as a Tech founder?
Xann: It’s a bit of a weird one, that story, isn’t it always? I’m Xann. I run a platform called Biiah, which is a platform improving employee productivity through music. We’ll get into how we do that in a little bit. A little bit more about my background. I’ve been making music ever since I was a little kid. I studied music business for my undergraduate degree, and then I did my Masters in choral conducting of all things. I’ve always been really moved by how music made me feel and people around me feel and the togetherness. Some of my closest friends in the world, I met singing with them in some form or other. And so I remember when I was nearing graduation for undergrad, and everybody around me knew what they wanted to do, and I still had no idea. I thought, well, I should start with my passion because that can’t lead me astray. At least I’ll be enjoying my time. And so I went and I did my Master straight after uni. And when I was doing my graduate degree, I just felt compelled to utilise, this is back in 2012, to utilise the opportunity that technology and digital media present for accessibility.
Now my specialty is 16th century polyphony, which is super, super, super niche. And for obvious reasons was struggling to adapt or really feeling like it didn’t need to adapt to the 21st century, which obviously for me felt like there’s such a profound opportunity to create an accessibility portal to this thing that had moved me, that had healed me, that had been a vehicle for my emotions for all of my upbringing into adulthood. And so that’s really where I started in my tech career. I didn’t know anything about tech. I just saw it around me and felt like there’s opportunity here. And I just want everybody to feel the way that I feel and be moved by this thing. And I saw it moving people around me who are really struggling, whether Uni can be really hard, social pressures, career pressures, productivity pressures, being in England where it’s grey all the time all winter long, there are lots of contributors to, whether it be poor mental health or productivity or lack of motivation, the pressure of having to figure out what you want to do for the rest of your life, study it and make a career out of it, there’s a lot going on.
And I felt like 10 times out of 10, the people that were making music around me were able to find salvation, togetherness, purpose. Music made them part of something bigger than themselves and took them out of those hard moments. And I just felt like, man, this is so powerful. And so that was the start of my career. That was over 10 years ago now. And I’ve continued to build in this space. And I feel so profoundly lucky that I get to build, that I get to continue my journey in trying to create accessibility to this thing that has meant so much to me and those around me. And I’m excited about building something that’s so human centric and a time where we’re so obsessed with automation, it feels like an immense joy to be able to do something that’s so human centric, apply technology to something that’s so human centric.
Caroline: So much of that resonates with me. Music has got me through my whole life, literally. And you’re right, it just has this amazing way of supporting us and connecting us and making us feel that togetherness. And honestly, when you make music with other people, it’s just like, yeah, there’s nothing better than it. And listening to music and appreciating that, it means so much to me. And I think making that accessible to people is really important because not everyone gets that opportunity. I know, like in the UK in particular, over the last couple of decades, a lot of the funding that was going into schools and for young people to be able to give them these opportunities to learn an instrument, they’re not there anymore. And unless you have enough financial resources, it’s very difficult to provide that for your children. So yeah, making it accessible to everyone. Yeah, it’s just really commendable. I can feel your passion. It’s so awesome. It’s so awesome. So for people listening, you mentioned Biiah and how it is a bit more focused for workplaces. You mentioned the word productivity. I wonder what was the connection there? Then maybe you could explain a bit more about how that works.
Xann: When I think about music and I think about singing in particular, it denotes this feeling of… Again, I’ll just repeat that bigger than myself, right? And so much of the personalisation around music right now, the curation is around calm, is around chilling us out, listening to lo-fi beats, engaging with things that really calm us. But when I think about singing, when I sing in the morning when I’m getting ready for work, I’m singing musical theatre, I’m like, get me out of myself. Reminds me it’s like the replacement for coffee, right? Exactly. Yeah, get fired up. When I think about the really fun stuff that I do with the choirs that I sing in, it’s big, it’s loud, it’s gotten in multiple parts. And so I think when we first started, we started in the same place where everybody exists, which is use music to soothe. But I felt like there was such a huge opportunity, especially in the workplace where we feel this lack of motivation. We’re sitting at our desks all day long. Some of us who are remote or work mainly from home, maybe a little bit hybridly, feel that disconnect from other people.
And music, what it provided me through the pandemic and now still where I work mostly remotely away from people, is it gives me that opportunity to feel like a human again and bring me back out of myself. And so the word productivity felt like the most appropriate word for what it is that we’re actually trying to do. Of course, music will soothe and of course, it provides this opportunity for calmness. But really, the people that we were the users, the end users that we were speaking to all the time, the words that they were describing, how making music made them feel and the value that they felt was this, take me out of myself, connect me with others, come out here, come into this new place. And so I think that that’s really what makes our platform unique because we’re really trying… There are so many incredible platforms that already exist to help soothe and calm and restore. And I encourage people to use those platforms as well. But what I think really is our bread and butter and the thing that we do best at and the thing that we’re most encouraged by is helping people not only meet other people in the workplace, create that teen cohesion, but also the elation that you feel when you get to sing loud, when you just get to make music and revive yourself.
And I think that when we look at the workplace in particular, there’s so much impact that can be made there because there are people who are being forced back into the workplace where they don’t feel like that feels good to them. You’re sat in a cubicle with a hundred other people in the same space, that’s stressful. There are so many elements to this new hybrid lifestyle that we live in, this new world post-COVID that allowing people to have music that fuels them and re-energizes them. And when I’m having to write a really intense report or presentation, I either go and sing a little bit of musical theatre, right something really big and loud, or I listen to something, my old punk rock playlist that I used to rock out to in high school to help me get into that new energy space. And that’s what we’re really trying to curate through our platform. So our app helps you find things, whether it be listening, passive engagement, because we’re sitting at our desks and cubicles surrounded by people, we can’t always just sing all day long [bursting into song] as much as that would bring me so much joy.
I’m not sure team leaders of companies would be very happy about their employees just singing all day long. But if you work from home or you have an opportunity in the car on the way to work from work, that there are singing exercises and humming exercises and ways for you to engage with your voice as well. So we have this active and passive engagement so that we can help you find the music that really helps move you, motivate you to really support people through that positive engagement space.
Caroline: Yeah, that makes so much sense. So it’s really tapping into people’s energy or using the music to tap into that energy. I think when I was reflecting on it, singing is actually quite a vulnerable thing to do. So sharing your voice when you’re not quite sure how people might react to it, having a platform like yours, I imagine, helps to build confidence and trust within teams as well. Then that, again, I think you used that term, feeling like there’s something bigger than yourself. You can contribute to something where the sum of the parts are bigger than the whole. That’s actually quite beautiful, isn’t it? When you think about all the ways in which it can benefit teams to come together in that way is really beautiful. There are so many benefits, aren’t there? I know when we had a chat before this, we were talking about singing and how beneficial it is for people. I would really love to reflect on that some more. I know we talked about some of the mental health benefits. There’s obviously physiological benefits because you’re using all your lung capacity and your body and your energy and the vibrations. So there is a lot. So maybe you could talk us through what you see as some of the main benefits and what people feedback to you as to how it helps them.
Xann: I would say the benefits is definitely where we started. Team cohesion, this ice breaker effect that happens where people feel taken out of the workplace, if we look at a sports stadium, a hundred thousand people singing and chanting together, that’s that same feeling that nine times out of ten people, one of their main motivations for engaging with our ecosystem is being able to meet other people in the workplace where they otherwise wouldn’t have cause to over something shared. Aside from the fact that deeply breathing together, singing together, there’s research that shows that you link in heartbeat, like through that linking in breath in that song, it links your heartbeat. And so there is actually a physiological link [oh] that’s happening when you sing with other people. When you sing on your own or with other people, of course, there’s mental health benefits and physiological benefits from serotonin increases in your body, stabilisation of cortisol from supporting… There’s research that shows that making music can slow down the progression of neurodegenerative diseases, that it helps to maintain elasticity in the brain that through obviously using your breath and your lungs, it can help support diaphragm, it can help with breathing.
There was a programme that was started during COVID for long COVID that was centred around singing that was based out of the ENO. And so I think when we look at all of the chemical things that are happening when we sing, whether it be alone or with other people, it feels so profound and so obvious. Why wouldn’t we all be making music all the time? The data, the research is there to show that it has all of these benefits, aside from the fact that it’s an intrinsic part of the human experience. At some time in our lives, we all sing, we all make music, we all, whether it’s with a parent or a caregiver or with a grandparent or a friend around the campfire or in class or church, if you go to church. There are so many in the sports stadium, there are so many examples of the way that we use music. We listen to the radio in the car, even if we take away from singing and we just think about listening, so many people are playlisting their days, their lives. How are we not using this in the workplace in a way to make more happier and more productive teams?
It just feels so obvious to me that if it can help everyone, why wouldn’t we use it? People feeling good in the workplace is inherently going to make better employees, more retained employees, more engaged employees, right? It just doesn’t… Why aren’t we… I don’t understand. It feels so obvious to me, obviously.
Caroline: Yeah, but there may be are some barriers. So I know we spoke before about… I told you the story of when we were younger in primary school and we did group singing things, if there was any of the children whose voices didn’t gel as well, they were called frogs and they were asked to mine. And I think… I think, unfortunately, if people have had those kinds of experiences when they’re younger, they’ll have that limiting belief that they feel like, Oh, well, because I don’t have a good voice or a pleasant voice, then it’s not for me. So what advice would you give to someone who maybe is feeling a bit like that and hasn’t tapped into these benefits because that belief is holding them back?
Xann: First of all, I cannot tell you the number of stories similar to that that I’ve been told. I mean, it is truly heartbreaking that children are being told to be quiet. And if everybody could send me a list of their music teachers or nuns or whoever it was that told them to stand in the back and mime, I’d be really happy to take a caravan around the country and speak to all these people and tell them how truly detrimental that can be, even if it’s just one time to a child. We’re talking about people who, years, dozens of years, decades later, are still not comfortable using their voices because that one time that they were told to be quiet. And so the level of detriment that that can cause is really profound. Our singing voice is absolutely linked to our speaking voice and how we feel confident in the world around us. And so if there are any parents or music teachers out there, please, just we should be encouraging the next generation to use their voices and find confidence in their voices. For people who unfortunately have had that happen to them, I would say there are a couple of things, obviously, just from a basic level, your voice is such a natural part of who you are more than a name.
A name is given to you. Your voice is part of who you are. In the same way that the height that you’re going to be is predisposed, like that it’s just a genetic part of you. And so you should feel confident in the thing that is your own. It is such a specific tag, human tag of who you are. I hear my mom’s voice and a certain feeling comes over me. There’s something that feels very profound about speaking to people that I’ve known for so long. Your voice is such a natural part of who you are that I encourage everyone to try to find ways to feel confident in it, whether it be your speaking or your singing voice. I think if you’re just starting out, one of my favourite things to do is like… And there are lots of ways that this can look, but being in the car and turning the radio all the way up and just shout, you’re so taken care of because you’re in this little shell all by yourself, nobody can hear you. And just start to use your voice, I think just by the act of using, you become comfortable.
And over time, the sound of your voice, we hear ourselves speaking all day long, the same thing will happen with your singing voice. If you’re just singing and you’re using your voice, it stops needing to be one thing or another. And then I think the other thing that rolls on past that is when somebody tells you to be quiet or that you shouldn’t sing, using the word no can be really profound. And I think that I see it with… I had somebody tell me a story once where their child, like two, three years old, would tell them to stop singing to them because they thought they had a bad voice. And I was like, and they stopped singing nighttime songs to that child. And I was like, first of all, where has that come from? Because the idea of good isn’t based on anything else than the things that we have around us. That’s media telling us, that’s the media industry telling us what modern good singing sounds like. But if we think about singers like Bob Dylan, who maybe on a traditional scale wouldn’t have been considered a good singer. But how profoundly moved an entire generation is by the stories that he’s telling through his voice.
And so what does good mean? It doesn’t mean anything. If we look at… I’ve studied music from 500 years ago to last year, and the vocal quality required for each of those things is very, very different. Me being trained in early traditional choral music requires a very different voice than somebody who’s singing R&B or soul or jazz. And when I was at Berklee for my undergraduate degree and I had all these incredible singers who were able to get up on stage and sing at these jazz clubs, and I couldn’t do that. I felt like a bad singer where I had been considered a good singer so much of my life. And that’s just context, right? It’s who you’re surrounding yourself with. It’s the genres that you’re listening to. You’re comparing yourself to something. You are being compared to something. And so maybe it’s just… This is why I love folk music so much. You think about traditional Irish songs, pub songs, Celtic music, and people are standing in a pub and you have a pint in your hand and you’re just like, sing it. It doesn’t matter what comes out of your mouth. And then everybody rises up around you and everyone singing together and song.
And I think about those moments and I’m like, did it matter what people sounded like on any level? And so I think… I think that this good, you should only sing if you sound good, is I think one of the things that’s creating a rot in the core of the music industry. And I hope that we can… And society, I hope that we can move past as we start to think more about wellbeing and the holistic human and who we are as unique and independent people in the world around us. I hope that we can start to think about people’s voices as, sure, maybe they don’t sound good in whatever the vision that you’ve created in your mind that this thing should sound like, which is usually based off of how you’ve heard it sung before. And actually just thinking about what story is being told, what’s the purpose of this exercise? Why are kids in school being told not to sing? What is the purpose of this exercise?
Caroline: I don’t know, because they should be allowed to explore. They should be allowed to have fun and be creative and just see what comes out. And that’s where magic happens. I don’t know, maybe it happens less than when I was younger. But I know that that is quite a significant barrier for people. And it’s a shame, isn’t it? Because we all have stories to tell. And telling those stories through the medium of music is so powerful.
Xann: I think often words convolut our emotions. And so music is a profound way for us to express ourselves. And so if anybody is listening out there and you don’t have confidence in your singing voice, I encourage you to just find your favourite music that you love to sing that moves you. And maybe at first you put it on loud enough where you can’t hear your voice, and slowly over time, you turn the music down. So you become comfortable hearing the sound of your voice, using your voice. That comfort will come with use. And so the best advice I can always give is just use it. And if you feel uncomfortable using it in front of other people, you don’t have to give that gift to somebody else. You can just share it with yourself. But you deserve to have access to this thing that has so much healing that comes along with it.
Caroline: Definitely. Definitely. Yeah. So you touched upon some of the physiological benefits and you cited the work that was done with long COVID survivors and helping with their recovery. I wonder it’d be so super cool if you could maybe give some examples of… So if someone is maybe thinking about their breathing technique and how they might want to improve that, is there exercises in the app.
Xann: That help people with that? Yeah, of course. Absolutely. We’ve published a bunch of literary reviews of research studies that already exist on the benefits, mental, physical, and social benefits of singing on our website. And so if you go to Biiah dot com, you can read about them there. I also encourage people to… Yes, we do have exercises like that through our app, but if you are struggling with long COVID, the ENO have lots of free exercises that exist on their platform, on their YouTube page. And also if there are specific examples, I always encourage people to reach out because we have a lot of knowledge that we are trying to structure in a way that we can publish lots of it. But it’s likely that I might have solutions for you as well. Obviously, we focus on people within the workplace and people exist outside of the workplace as well rounded humans. And so I’m here to also support. So if anybody wants help finding their thing of how they can start their singing journey, please do reach out.
Caroline: Yeah. Sharing all that really good research and knowledge. We do similar in our business as well. And it’s so beneficial to be able to signpost people to other things as well. So yeah, so that’s ace that you’re doing that too. One of the other things that I was reflecting on after we’d had our initial discussion was whether there’s also a gender barrier when it comes to singing. So I know from my experience, like when I was in the choir at university, it was majority female. There were very few males in our choir. Well, to be fair, that was 20 years ago as well. Maybe things are slightly better. But within the work that you do and your past experience, have you seen that as well? That maybe men aren’t getting as much benefit as they could do because they see it as, Oh, that’s for women, that’s not for me.
Xann: Absolutely. And I think that there are probably two causes as we all still exist in this very intense gender binary on a global basis of what’s expected of women and what’s expected of men and how we are allowed to be vulnerable versus not. You mentioned earlier on this podcast about how our voice can be quite a vulnerable thing. And obviously, that is something that we see in a variety. People have different levels of comfort using their voice. I think in society itself, we are quite used to sharing stories, talking with each other, using our voices all day long. And so I think that that inherently contributes to that open mindedness, aside from the fact that I think that just inherently by saying… I’m trying to be as technically correct as I can, but there are certain invisible things that we are taught from a very early age, like the implicit bias around gender that exists specifically in your voice, but in other things. When we look at STEM, there’s so much work being done to try to level the gender playing field because women in science or anyone who’s not a man in the sciences is encouraged to take other more like humanities-focused courses and things like that.
That’s implicit bias. That’s language that’s being used from when we were little kids. And so I’m sure if we did a study on when we just track somebody’s every single day all day long, that perhaps women are encouraged to use their voices in that musical way more. I’m not sure, but I definitely do see in a lot of our groups a majority women over men, for sure. I mean, we have a couple of really great, profound men in our groups and in our community that feel very confident in using their voices, whether having come from a trained background or not. And so I don’t think it’s prohibitive at all. I don’t think gender matters really in this, especially in the spaces that we’re trying to create, which is just use your voice because it’s good for you and others.
Caroline: No, it shouldn’t.
Xann: But there’s a lot of work on the back end that we’re trying to do around how do we welcome people into the ecosystem? How do we make people feel included? How can we encourage more men into this because it provides so much healing? And obviously there is some implicit barrier that exists. I think it’s a difficult one to solve, but we definitely do see it. And so working all the time to try to find new ways to break down those barriers.
Caroline: Yeah, that’s great. That’s so good. It was making me also think about one of the other myths, which is, Oh, but I can’t read music. I’m not musical. Or sometimes people feel like they don’t have rhythm as well. They might feel like, Well, that’s not for me because I can’t read music. I mean, to be fair, I can read music. I can’t properly sightread music. You have to give me a good amount of time to look at it to figure out how all the notes go together. But I guess, yeah, I was actually going to share. I went to a workshop. I think it was probably about a year ago, and it was an African singing workshop. And the guy that led the session, he had us singing in a whole other language. We ended up we split up into four different parts. Nothing was written down. Some of the words he did write down phonetically just to help us to get it to go in our heads as to how to pronounce all the sounds. But I was blown away that this… And there was probably about 25 people there, something like that, split into the four different harmonies. And by the end of the day, honestly, I had goosebumps because I was just like, I can’t believe that we’ve all managed to do this and not one note was written down. It was just phenomenal. And I was like, Oh, wow, this just shows what’s possible. And yeah, I wish I could do more of that.
Xann: Well, what is the purpose of reading music?
Caroline: That’s a very good question.
Xann: It’s a means to an end, right? I mean, really, if any of my friends are listening to this podcast, I know that they’re going to be laughing because one of my soapboxes that I stand on quite regularly, if you tip me over what you’ve just done, I will just go fall deep down the rabbit hole, which is I actually wrote my dissertation at the end of my master’s programme on notation and the 14th century notate in particular, but looking at where notation started and why we used it. And there’s something quite profound about written music. It enables composers, or originally, it enabled composers who didn’t speak the same language across the continent to be able to send music to each other, which really helped to encourage and evolve music. When you listen and hear music from the 15th century, 16th, 17th, 18th, you can hear it expanding all the time. And of course, the sheet music, being able to composition, writing it down, enabled that a lot of it. I’m sure the printing press, I’m sure, also really helps being able to send music around to different people for them to read and then sing was more profound than just learning things by wrote only because the oral tradition, I mean, how many songs can we keep in our heads? 200? 300? I’m not sure. It’s quite limiting. And so for people who are singing all the time like monks, the written tradition enabled them to be able to recall more music, have a starting place of more music. It wasn’t just based on what they had heard and learned from people before them. They didn’t have to spend years and years and years and years and years and years learning by memory, but they could just read it. It was there like a Post-it Note. I’ve written on a Post-it Note. Remember, this is how this song starts. Okay, let’s go. And now we contribute so much of continuity of music, in classical music in particular, and when we’re learning music in school to reading music. And I’m like, but why? What is the purpose of making music? It’s to connect us with other people. It’s to be moved, it’s to be emotionally moved. It’s to be taken on a journey, to be told a story to connect to other things around us, for us to greater understand other things happening around us. There are so many examples of music being a vehicle for other… Sheet music doesn’t come into it.
But somehow we’ve gotten confused along the way, and we think it’s the most important thing. Now I do think for professional musicians, being able to read music is profound because you get to do much more music. Absolutely. But I don’t think it’s the end-all and this idea that in the choral industry, we see it a lot, that people who are very, very successful in the industry, especially in the UK, are people who can read music. And it’s because, of course, you can just go in, you don’t need very much rehearsal, you can just sing the music and there you go. And I just think that we’ve lost the mark a little bit on what the purpose is. I’m not saying that reading music isn’t important. I think for professional musicians, for sure, it’s important. And how we get people to the professional level, teaching them how to read music, really important. But actually, when I started this business, my music advisory board can confirm. From the very beginning, I was like, I don’t want this to be… No part of this will be about reading music. Everything is going to be about reading, about learning music by wrote.
And all of our programmes are about learning music by rote, about intrinsically engaging yourself with music, because I’ve just found that it’s such a huge barrier to so many people. People think that they shouldn’t sing in a community choir because they can’t read music. And then actually, is that really necessary on any level for the average day to day person who just wants to like, how do we learn great folk music? Not by reading music, by hearing it and engaging with it, and then putting our own story spin to it. And I just.
Caroline: And joining in once we feel like, okay, I’ve got the chorus down now. Let’s go.
Xann: Exactly. Exactly. And I think that there are great programmes that exist to teach people to read music. But I’m really excited about programmes that are blossoming around using music in other ways by learning it, by wrote, by engaging with it, through listening, through utilising your voice. I mean, circle singing as an example has become really, really profoundly popular in the last year, which is the idea that you are becoming comfortable with improvisation. So you just get together, imagine getting together with 20 people, not having any music. You’re not singing any song in particular and just all improvising. So next level comfortable with your voice that you’re just making sounds, whatever comes out, and that’s the music that’s created. So there’s this movement that’s happening around that idea now, which I really love this idea of becoming so comfortable with your voice that you could just let it rip. And with another-
Caroline: I’d not heard of that.
Xann: It’s growing in popularity. So I think that that’s going to help level the playing field a little bit when we look at the musicians like Bobby McFarron, when we look at Bobby on stage, the reason why he’s profoundly famous is because he was able to not only use his voice in these crazy, crazy, like next-level ways, but had such a comfort in making music as it came out in his voice and how he sounded and how it told the story and engaged with others. We see Jacob Collier doing a lot of the same thing, encouraging huge audiences to sing in perfect and in harmony, not needing any background in music, nothing being prohibitive other than buying the ticket and being there. Anybody who’s here, you can sing and you should engage. And so I do feel like the playing field might be levelling in this idea of needing to be able to read music to make it. I think we’re finally starting to break those barriers down.
Caroline: Oh, that’s so cool. I just love that that’s being a part of really fundamental, important part of how you’ve built Biiah. Right from the start you were like, no, we need to make sure that this is successful and completely remove that barrier from people. That is so awesome. Super, super cool. Yeah, that’s super amazing. We’ve discussed loads and loads of benefits. One of the reasons why I was actually really keen to have you on, so this will go live in December. And December is one of my favourite times of year because we get carol singing and I do love carol singing. I’ve got some favourite ones. Our village, they normally do a little switch on with the Christmas tree lights and then they’ll do a little carol singing session. The young people play recorders and things like that as well. It’s super cute to get all the community involved. I love Christmas. Yeah. So it would be nice to have a wee chat about if people are thinking about giving singing a try over Christmas. Have you got any advice on maybe songs to have a go at or different activities.
Xann: Well, I mean, there are so many great Christmas songs, but also nonreligious winter songs. When we think about Frosty the Snowman and things like that, there are so many albums on Spotify, Amazon Music that you can listen to and sing along to, songs that you’ll recall from your childhood. And so I encourage people to like… Obviously, I have already started down the deep rabbit hole of my holiday playlisting. And so I think just obviously starting at home and playing music from home and just singing along to the music at home is always an amazing place to start. I mean, what I love about this time of year is how many opportunities there are to go to carol services or if you’re a Christian, I think that there’s a lot of opportunity around carol services, carol singing around the country, participating in carol singing, but also paying to seeing carol singing. And I think that allowing yourself to be moved by the Christmas spirit is obviously a really profound place to start. There’s so much great music this time of year that you could never get bored of it. I certainly haven’t. And I am deep down the rabbit hole, 30 plus years in.
Caroline: Yeah, it’s going to be awesome. The kids have got concerts and I’ve just ordered. So my daughter has been learning the keyboard. So I’ve ordered her a Christmas keyboard book. So yeah, we’re going to get right into that. And then we’re actually also organising a tech showcase at our tech hub in Aberdeen. And so because it’s the first week in December, we’re going to have Friday as our Christmas extravaganza. So I’ve decided to call it Tech the Halls. And I’ve been… I’ve been working on changing the words basically for Tech the Halls. And I’m like, Am I brave enough? [Yes] To record that, and put it out. [Yes, amazing.] Now that I’ve said this [Yes], I’m going to have to do it, aren’t I? I’ve been having lots of creative fun thinking about how I can put a tech twist on Deck the Halls.
Xann: Amazing.
Caroline: I love Christmas. Such a.. For music it is a really special time.
Xann: What I would also say is we have a big newsletter that goes out monthly of opportunities for you to sing in your local area, both virtually in your local virtual area and also locally. We have gigs that are happening all over the UK. And we basically say whether we think that you’d need expert level, do you need to sightread for this? Or could you just rock up and just learn music having no experience whatsoever? And so if you’re looking for places to sing in your local area [oh, nice], you can sign up to our newsletter on our website and we send that out monthly. So not just for the festive of season, but any time of year we are directing people to opportunities to sing around. So we’re here to help find places for you to sing if you want.
Caroline: Cool. Well, we can put the link to that in the notes as well so that people have got it. That’s a great suggestion. Maybe on that train of thought, is there any other initiatives or activities that you’ve got coming up that you would like to share?
Xann: Yeah. I mean, if anybody who’s listening works at a company that does team away days, does workshops is more on the innovative side. We have in-person workshopping that we do all the time. We come into businesses. We do professional development around music. We do team bonding workshops through music. We set up workplace choirs. And so if any of those things feel like even vaguely interesting to you, even if you’re not the person to set it up, I’m always really happy to hear from people who want to add music into their work days and so here to support on that side. So if you go to our website or I’m happy obviously to include my email, as rogue as that is to include my email as part of this send out. And so anybody can write to me any time expressing their interest. Really happy to work with you and your workplace to try to set up some music that happens internally.
Caroline: That is a great offer. So yes, if anyone’s listening, do take Xann up because it will just make your workplace more cohesive, improve everyone’s wellbeing. As we said, there are so many benefits. Yeah, awesome. So one of the big things that I’ve been working on in my business is creating kind spaces and the podcast is part of that journey. And as I’ve been exploring that concept and what it means, I’ve been asking my guests to share a bit about what it means to them. So how do you look after your wellbeing? And what are the strategies that you turn to if you are feeling a little bit out of balance? And I think it’s really insightful, especially if if you’re already working in a well-being area. And some of the insights that I’ve had from people, I’ve been like, Oh, my gosh, I never knew that that was a thing. The last interview I did, I got introduced to a whole new well-being concept that I had never really heard of before. So I’m always really intrigued to see what kinds of things people do to stay well and what really looks after them.
Xann: I’m really intense when it comes to looking after my wellbeing, probably because I am a work maschist and I just work way too hard, way too long most days. And so I actually track my wellbeing in this giant 75-row spreadsheet.
Caroline: Oh, wow. I love a spreadsheet but that’s intense.
Xann: Where I mark down the things that I feel like have positively contributed or negatively contributed, including I track things like my heart rate, my sleep, my hours. And so the first and primary thing that I try to do is the most basic. I try to eat well regularly throughout the day. So I make sure that my glucose levels are normalised, that I have the fuel that I need to get through my day. Hydrating is obviously an important thing and then getting a sufficient number of hours. I know it sounds so simple, but I need eight hours of sleep, especially in the change of seasons. And so if I’ve gotten, let’s say, six hours.
Caroline: It’s gotten dark here.
Xann: I know you’re suddenly in the dark. You did disappear last week on our call, so hopefully you don’t disappear entirely before the end of this. But I really make sure to like, if I’ve gotten six hours of sleep and I need a little bit of a sleep boost, I’ll cancel something that I have in the evening so that I can go to sleep earlier and have a longer wind down period because I just think sleep is that important.
I’ve really noticed the difference. I mean, now that I’m in my mid 30s, I’ve really noticed a sharp difference in if I’ve gotten six versus eight hours of sleep in my cognitive abilities. So that’s primary thing. I do other things like I try to go out for a walk. So if I’m feeling really, really anxious, if right now I’m doing something and we’re on a work call and I get off the call and I can feel that like, I’ll take a step up and maybe walk around the block or go and get some fresh air and just try to reset. I have a bunch of music playlists that obviously I use throughout the whole day. I think being a founder, you are just knocked on your butt all day, every day. People are just… It is really a tough roller coaster.
Caroline: We’ve spoken about this. That it takes a very special kind of person to be as crazy as us.
Xann: Yeah, exactly. And so I have so much music that I have a whole set of playlist and albums that I have on rotation that helped me based on how I’m feeling and how I want to feel help switch me into that energy. And so obviously, I’ve used a lot of, because I do that mechanism for myself all day long, we’re using that mechanism to build into our ecosystem so that we can help people do the same thing, utilise music to flip us into the positive, make us feel however we want to feel, whether that’s like confident, refreshed, energetic, positive, and very solution oriented. And so if I’m feeling really, really down and mopey or self-deprecating, I’ll put on a playlist that makes me feel confident about myself again and reminds me of that. I do therapy. I work with my therapist every week on my mental health because this roller coaster of being a founder. And I just think that it’s such an important support mechanism for me, just being able to sometimes word-vomit the stuff that’s happened that week just to make sense of it. I do acupuncture when necessary. I love Thai massage.
Obviously, those things can be really prohibitive, but if I feel like my health is really taking a turn or I’ve gotten three, five days of really bad sleep, those things really help push me back into the good zone. Taking a full day off if I’m feeling really bad. So actually taking a Sunday and just resetting, having long dinners with friends and just reminding myself that I’m a human being, going to see live music. I mean, there’s so much singing in choir. I mean, for me, that can be both a stressful experience, depending on the environment, and also really profoundly beneficial. And so I try to pick and choose… I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’ve spent a lot of time curating a really long list of things that make me feel good. And I track how I’m feeling… I’m honest with myself about how I’m feeling. Like in the summertime. Sometimes just going and sitting in the sun for 10 minutes and just getting that natural vitamin D, I resets my entire day. And so I try to create this long list of things that help me reset at the end of a long work day, turning the lights down and putting on some Bach onto the record player and reading my book about British churches, such a good emotional reset for me.
Listening to Billy Holiday over a glass of wine, chatting to one of my friends or my partner. If we have to learn what it is that makes us feel good and fills our cups. And it’s not going to be the same one size fits all for every single day and every single thing that you’re feeling. Having that wide, I think I did a podcast about wellbeing about a year ago. I think I called it a bucket. I have this wellbeing bucket that I can pull from all the time.
Caroline: Yeah. I sometimes call it a toolkit. So it sounds like you’ve got lots of things in your toolkit.
Xann: And I think we can get so many ideas from the outside world, but really figuring out for us. Sometimes singing really does it for me, and sometimes I don’t want to be around other people. And so that can actually be a detriment, right? And so I think I’m happy that we’re moving into a space in the world where people are encouraged to find the things that make them feel good. Right on time. Right on time. We knew it would happen right around now.
Caroline: Oh, Eilidh’s come home from school. Oh, there she is. I know that’s cool. I think, yeah, it’s been an amazing discussion. Thank you so much for all of your time. We’ve covered a lot of ground, haven’t we? It’s amazing. As I started this podcast with me basically saying that I think singing is the best thing in the whole world. Obviously, I’m a bit biassed. But yeah, it’s just been great to have you share a bit more about some of the benefits. Hopefully, we’ve dispelled some of the myths and made people feel a little bit more confident about using their voices because, yeah, I know it’s not easy. Because, yeah, like I said before, it’s quite a vulnerable thing to do to share your voice with other people. It’s something that I’m trying to work on every day. Tech the halls will be coming.
Xann: It’s so amazing. I can’t wait to hear it.
Caroline: That would be so good. I know. Do you know what? I might make it a family thing and have everyone. [Amazing] Awesome. Before we say goodbye to everyone, I need to make sure that people know where to find you. Have you got a social media handle as well? We mentioned the website and how people get in touch by email.
Xann: Biiah, B-I-I-A-H, I would say because we’re very business-focused, LinkedIn is always a really great place to come. Our website is chock-full of resources and things like that. But also, please reach out if there’s anything that I can do to help you on your journey, whether it’s your own journey or your company’s journey to powering better wellbeing and productivity through music, I’m here to support whatever that looks like. And so we have all the other traditional social channels, but I find that email, our website, and are really the best places to find us.
Caroline: The main ones. Yeah. Awesome. Oh, no, that’s so great. Now, in case I’ve missed anything, let me know because my brain sometimes. And this is Friday, so I’ve had a long week.
Xann: No, not at all. I mean, Caroline, this has been so great. I think what you’re building here with Kindspace is important, encouraging people to think about their own Kind Spaces, the Kind Spaces that maybe they help support for those around them. As we come out of COVID back into this weird hybrid world, thinking about that is something that we should all be doing and thinking about how we can support ourselves, our own wellbeing, and uniquely in what we think helps fuel our positive mental state and physical state. And so I think it’s so great that you are showing the world how diverse the options are for supporting your own unique self. And I’m so honoured, especially given the holiday, festive spirit to be able to come on to your podcast and talk about singing and how good it makes people feel and to encourage people to find space to build confidence in their own voices. It’s so important.
Caroline: Oh, thank you, Xann. That’s some really nice last reflections. Oh, thank you. Thank you. So yes, we will see everyone in the new year.
Xann: Great. Happy New Year, everyone.
Caroline: Catch up soon. Thank you.
Caroline: Xann’s words are an inspiration to nurture our voices and embrace the healing power of music. Her passion for making singing accessible shines through. Singing and using your voice can be a profound act of courage. There is certainly a vulnerability to it, but I encourage you to use your voice more, as I know it will bring you and others tremendous joy. Carry this spirit and gift of song into your own life and shared it with those around you.
As the podcast series continues, I encourage you to get in touch and share your stories and tips, I’d love to hear from you! Pop me an email at caroline@tltechsmart.com or message on social media @createyourkindspace
