Anyone who has ever sung in an organized choir or been a long-term part of a choral group knows that there is a strange and enchanting experience that goes along with singing. There is a point that you reach, deep into a practice or in the middle of a song, where it is impossible to worry about anything else. You fall with gleeful abandon into the music itself, and nothing seems to exist but the choir and the song, where each of the two are reinforcing the other with an unironic joy that gathers in momentum like some sort of perpetual-motion machine. In my own college Glee Club days, my director used to say that the mood of the song could be sorrowful or happy, robust or gentle, but that regardless of its mood or quality, you sang it with a smile. Smiling improved the tone of the piece, and singing a song well made you smile even more.

There is a partial scientific explanation for this. Singing releases endorphins and oxytocin, which in turn reduces stress levels and stimulates feelings of friendship and familiarity. Whatever the scientific basis may be, however, it is something that anyone who has joined in group singing can attest to from their own experience. It can even occasionally be caught by an audience enjoying such performances and is perhaps the reason why concerts, operas, and musicals have been as popular as they have throughout history.

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Unique among film musicals in this regard is Robert Wise’s 1965 adaptation of The Sound of Music. While musicals as a genre exist precisely because of this very human interest in music, the great strength of The Sound of Music is in the way that it manages to capture the pure joy and exhilaration of singing well in a group. Part of the way in which this enchanting quality is captured is undoubtedly due to the eager intensity of Julie Andrews as Maria. As a woman known for her voice and musical performances, the ease with which she slips into the role of the aspiring nun who is so full of music that she can’t keep from singing is as natural as you could expect. It is a plot that works extremely naturally for a musical as well: While the audience always has to overcome a “suspension of disbelief” hurdle in musicals (in the form of “why are they always randomly breaking into song?”), in The Sound of Music the reason for it being a musical is an integral part of the story. Maria can’t keep herself from singing, and the joy of music is something she overflows with and inevitably shares with others.

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Image via Twentieth Century-Fox

It is this same natural unity between the plot and the format of the musical that gives The Sound of Music its unique quality. As a musical that's very theme is the transformative power of music, the beauty and excitement of singing is not only on display in the songs but in the story as well. The musical joy of Maria enters into the regimented and cold atmosphere of the Von Trapp household and transforms it through the simple experience of singing together. The scene of the dancing puppets is an excellent example of this: It is a goofy, objectively silly skit, but the musical harmony makes it simply delightful. The transformation in Christopher Plummer’s Captain Von Trapp is equally effective, as the intrusion of Maria’s music into his withdrawn life allows him to express the depths of his previously hidden emotion.

And it is in Von Trapp himself that the best encapsulation of the movie may be found. The Sound of Music is hardly an overlooked movie. It won Best Picture and Best Director back in 1965, after all. But like many films considered “classics,” it is a movie that people tend to watch once or twice and rarely ever return to it. Plummer himself was not fond of it, for years calling it “The Sound of Mucus.” But he finally found himself coming back to it in later years, saying he was “totally seduced” by its charm and warmth.

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The curious thing about The Sound of Music is that, at least for someone who has been part of a choir before, the movie is able to sweep you up into that same sensation as you get from singing in a group. The excellent music and performances are hardly unique – there are plenty of great movie musicals and performances out there – but the unity of The Sound of Music's plot and format make for a surprisingly powerful story about the transformative joy of singing. That makes it a classic worth revisiting, whether for the quality of the film itself or the ability it has to ensnare the viewer in the forgotten joys of music.

As Capt. Von Trapp himself says: “You brought music back into the house. I had forgotten.” Like a good song sung well, you cannot keep from smiling when you’re watching The Sound of Music.