Back-to-School Series, Part I: The Benefits of Joining a Choir
Before you look at the title and say, "This blog post has back-to-school in the title, these people must be no fun and so I will never ever ever read it because I want summer to last forever!!!!!" let me assure you that writing that phrase definitely made me wince a little. Now that June and July and the craziness of camp are over, we here at Rising Stars are left with only one month with which to do All of Summer. So we are not exactly in a huge rush to start thinking about the fall.
BUT, this time of year (mid-to-late August [yes I realize we are not quite halfway through August yet]) is actually the perfect time to think about your plans for the following academic year, especially if you want to get involved in something arts-related. Most schools hold auditions for their vocal ensembles and/or fall shows right after school starts. Many private teachers run back-to-school specials for voice lessons. Community theaters and choral groups start gearing up for their seasons. You get the picture.
This series of blog posts will highlight several of these arts-related options, and give you some basic info about the benefits and the value of each one. This post is about choral groups!
I am a HUGE advocate of choral singing (as long as the chorus director is promoting good vocal technique that is!). I believe that every musician should sing in at least one choral group over the course of his or her life. I still sing in choral groups to this day. I think it is much more fun to make music with other people than to do it by yourself. Plus, the skills that you learn from this kind of ensemble singing are invaluable and highly translatable to other musical settings (shows, private lessons, etc.).
Most middle and high schools, whether public or private, have some kind of choral program, either during school, after school, or some combination of both. Your school may have several different groups to choose from, including a mixed choir (usually a large-ish group of both girls and boys), a women's choir, a madrigal group or chamber ensemble of some kind (usually a smaller, audition-only group), or an a capella group.
If you're interested in joining your school's choral group, try to get in touch with the director and ask what the process is for joining. Can anyone sign up? Does it need to be included in your official class schedule? Do you have to audition? If so, when are the auditions and what will they entail? You can also ask friends or classmates who have participated in the group in the past what their experience was like.
Here are just a few good reasons to join a choral group:
1. It keeps you singing regularly. If you don't have time or money for private lessons, it can be hard to find time/reason/motivation to sing. A choral group's weekly rehearsals ensure that your voice will get exercised frequently. If the director is good, you will also learn some basic vocal technique.
2. You learn lots of valuable musical skills, including basic music theory, how to read music, and solfege.
3. You learn how to sing in harmony, or at least sing a melody with harmonies happening around you. This is harder than it sounds if you've never done it before.
4. You learn valuable ensemble listening skills. Being a good listener is absolutely essential to being a good musician. Choral singing trains you to listen for balance (am I singing too loudly/softly?), blend (does my vowel match everyone else's?) and tuning (am I singing flat or sharp, or just right?), among other things. It also heightens your self-awareness and helps you see how your voice fits into the larger picture.
5. You'll get the experience of performing a few times a year, both at concerts and at competitions.
6. Your director may choose to recommend you for district auditions. Districts is a very exciting opportunity, and to be recommended is a huge compliment. If you score high enough at your districts audition, you will get to participate in the festival chorus and meet tons of students your age from all over the region.
7. You will get to sing a wide variety of great music. Most school choral directors program a variety of selections throughout the year, which include classical music of various eras, contemporary compositions, and arrangements of standards or showtunes. There is literally something for everyone.
8. You will undoubtedly make friends! The cooperation and teamwork that choral singing builds is often the foundation for strong social dynamics. To put it much more cheesily, music brings people together.
These are just a few reasons! There are many more you will discover if you join and invest yourself in your group.
Stay tuned for the next post in this series, which will talk about the benefits of private lessons!
