What makes people sing together? Socio-Psychological and Cross-Cultural Perspectives on the Choral Phenomenon

This article describes a research study which explored the social and musical phenomenon of why people take part in communal singing as represented in a choral society in North London. The authors are the conductor of the choral society and his former MA student from Greece for whom, initially, the whole collective singing experience within such a context was new. The research design adopted both participant observation, questionnaire and interview methodologies to investigate the phenomenon following a review of appropriate literature.