Whether you're applying for funding or just want to tell your councillor or MP about your leisure-time music activity, we've brought together a range of reports, research and further reading that provide evidence of the wide-ranging benefits (to individuals and communities) of music and leisure-time musical activity.You can use all this evidence, which is freely available online, to support funding applications, campaigns and general advocacy.In addition, Culture Case provides a fantastic free resource summarising research reports into a wide range of arts related matters. For research specifically related to arts and health, Arts Council England have produced a useful advocacy toolkit via the Culture Health & Wellbeing Alliance. And you can write to your councillor or MP/MSP/AM using Write To Them.ContentsStatsOn music and the arts generallyThe impact of music and the artsFocus on local and communityMusic educationMusic and wellbeing1. StatsOur Creative Talent. The only report on voluntary arts in England, so despite being published in 2008, still worth referring to for statistics on participatory arts and crafts activity. Also, as it was prepared for Department of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS), figures carry government weightTaking Part – Arts focus (annual). The Taking Part Survey has run since 2005 and is the key evidence source for DCMS. It is a continuous face to face household survey of adults aged 16 and over in England and children aged 5 to 15 years old, providing reliable national estimates of engagement with the arts, heritage, museums and librariesTreasurers’ Survey (2013) from Making MusicSinging Europe (2016) report commissioned by the European Choral Association – Europa Cantat (ECA-EC) and funded by the EU, which has useful statsBig Choral Census (2017) report by Voices Now to establish some statistics on choirs and leisure-time singers in the UKUK Live Music Census (2017) took a snapshot of the live music scene in several cities in the UK on a spe