Singing Shared Just How Marlon Williams Likes It

Group singing has been central to New Zealander Marlon Williams’ life, journalist and author Jenny Valentish writes for The Guardian. He likens it to a spiritual practice, “without the theory or having to worry about its tangential relationship to reality”. Upon first play of his third solo album My Boy there’s every chance you’ll find yourself harmonising. You can almost hear the woosh of oxytocin.

“There’s nothing like it,” Williams, 31, says. “I first started singing in the choir when I was a kid and I thought, this is incredible, this is all that matters. Why is anyone doing anything else? Then I joined the cathedral choir and I got more into my Māori side, where sharing one voice is such an integral part of life.

When the pandemic hit, as researchers wrote in the Conversation, “One of the most encouraging phenomena we have begun to see in response to social distancing laws are the innovative ways that people are starting to bond with each other, particularly musically.”

“I think it’s exciting that we’re going back to the tribal elements of group singing because it’s clearly so vital to us,” Williams says.

Williams is on tour in the US through September.

Original article by Jenny Valentish, The Guardian, September 1, 2022.

Photo by Derek Henderson.