SingFit’s Mission is to Mainstream Music Therapy
Go to the SingFit website and you’ll notice the app, available on iOS and Android, is touted as “an award-winning music app designed by music therapists to deliver music engagement.” The company, otherwise known as Musical Health Technologies, relies on evidenced-based science to “create robust lives for people as they age through the intentional application of prescribed singing.” SingFit’s unique platform has been built to “[provide] a way to empower healthcare professionals, love economy caregivers and individuals to utilize music as medicine on a mass scale for the first time in history.”
I recently connected with SingFit chief executive Rachel Francine over email for a brief interview on her background and the company. She holds a Master’s in Futures Studies with a focus on socially conscious capitalism, and holds deep ties to disability touching people close to her. Francine explained she’s been thrust into caretaking roles three times in life: her mother coped with dementia and cancer while her father battled congestive heart failure, diabetes, and liver disease, then a mentor with Stage 4 cancer. The experiences shaped Francine’s, and ultimately SingFit’s, greater purpose.
“Right now, we’re focused on older adults, including those with dementia, Parkinson’s, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), traumatic brain injury, chronic pain, depression, anxiety, and social isolation,” she said regarding SingFit’s focus in terms of its product strategy. “Singing can be a powerful tool for treating and managing these conditions and more. Yet with only 10,000 music therapists in the United States, compared with roughly 190,000 speech-language pathologists, access to therapeutic music has been limited. SingFit lets any medical practitioner, caregiver, family member, or individual access therapeutic music at the touch of a button.”
According to Francine, in most ancient and indigenous cultures, singing has been an “embedded wellness practice.” Buddhist traditions dictate utilizing “rhythmic chanting and mantra recitation to steady the mind and cultivate inner calm.”
“Our vision is to reinsert singing into healthcare at large, from womb to hospice,” she said.
Francine explained SingFit works by digitizing “an evidence-based therapeutic music practice” called lyric coaching. In traditional practice, a music therapist plays an instrument whilst verbally prompting listeners with the words to the song. This makes participation eminently democratic and accessible, as Francine noted anyone can join in regardless of whether they can read, remember the lyrics, or their vision precludes them from seeing the lyrics in print. SingFit, she added, features a Lyric Coach track, a guide-singer track, and a backing-music track for users, replete with therapist-designed algorithms which “guide users through the experience to achieve the best results.” Thus, using SingFit requires no musical knowledge or experience whatsoever.
When asked about feedback, Francine said the software is currently used in over a thousand senior living communities, with the caregiver solution “just getting started.” She added the company’s work with older adults has proven “very satisfying” as they begin in the early steps of their journey. Nonetheless, Francine stressed her belief feedback “is best shown rather than told” and pointed to this video of a woman with dementia and a traumatic brain injury, alongside her speech therapist, using SingFit.
At its core, SingFit’s raison d’être is about delivering accessibility. What something like JubileeTV does for television for the elderly community, SingFit does similarly with music. Most people presume accessibility is applicable to people with disabilities—but senior citizens need accommodations as they age because of course they do. It’s nature running its course; our bodies become less spry as we age. Older adults rely on assistive technologies every bit as hard as people decades younger. Francine and the SingFit team exist to ensure seniors get the quality care they need and richly deserve.
