As the holidays are approaching, I can’t help but feel a little heartbroken that I’m not a part of a choir this year. December always includes way too many performances for a chorus member, but it doesn’t really feel like the holidays without the shuffle between concerts and the excessive consumption of Throat Coat tea to preserve our voices. For the first time in 14 years, I’ve decided to take a break from the harmonic chaos that has consumed so much of my life. Choir is much more than a class, a club, or a hobby. For me, it was a lifestyle. I honestly can’t remember the time in my life when I wasn’t involved in choir (maybe that’s because I was 4 years old) – and I realize now that I wouldn’t have it any other way. Choir introduced me to my first love: music. Specifically, singing. I became more and more involved and took years of voice and piano lessons to supplement this passion. Right now, I’d give anything to be standing on those risers with some of my favorite people (even if we were practicing our least favorite skill: sight reading). Here are a few of the ways that choir has impacted my life:
1. I learned the value of dedication.
As a member of a choir, you commit to showing up to every rehearsal and you have people who are counting on you to be there. During my senior year of high school, I was in three choirs at school, my church choir, and an a capella group. I was also the president of my school choir, so as you can imagine, all things choral were constantly on my mind amidst the stress of college applications and a bad case of senioritis. Although I had many other things going on outside of choir, I knew that I had to be at every rehearsal. This taught me how to manage my time well and how to prioritize what is really important to me.
2. It gave me the chance to sing every day.
Music is good for the soul. I’m actually kind of addicted to it—I’m always either listening to music, singing to myself (aka pretending to be a Broadway star as I sing in my car or shower), or walking around with a song stuck in my head. Choir provided me with the opportunity to sing every day, and I’m so grateful for that.
3. It taught me that weird is good, and even encouraged in some settings.
In all of the choirs I was a part of, we did some weird things to warm up. We found that the weirder our warm up was, the better we sounded. That’s probably because after you sing, “99 nuns intern in an Indiana nunnery” and “ma may me moe ba ba ba ba ba ba ba” a million times or are forced to “yawn melodically,” you’re ready to tackle pretty much anything. Occasionally we also massaged each other before we started singing, which was weird, yet awkwardly relaxing.
4. I developed strange methods of communication.
In choir rehearsals, the director often stops the singing to critique or run through particular voice parts while the rest of the choir is expected to sit quietly and listen or “think through” their own part. This was always a time for me to look across the room at my friends who weren’t within whispering earshot and communicate using odd hand signals or attempting to silently mouth whatever it was I wanted to say. Obviously this wasn’t always successful, so it usually ended in an eruption of inappropriate laughter and a few stern looks.
5. I now have way too many choir-related inside jokes.
One of my friends still refers to me as “the fool on the hill,” which is a line from a jazz piece we sang junior year. From my experience, choir is composed of people from all aspects of the social spectrum, which leads to funny interactions, resulting in funny inside jokes.
6. My eyes were opened to the power of unity.
Teamwork is something that you’re taught at a young age, so it wasn’t really a new concept for me when I joined a choir. But the interpersonal skills I developed through the choir atmosphere were more effective than those from other areas of my life. When a group of people is able to get together and put in an (hopefully) equal amount of work to perform well, a sense of intimacy within the group is inevitably created.
7. It brought me travel opportunities.
I was able to go on two summer tours with one of the choirs I was a member of. We toured the East Coast and got to perform in so many beautiful places as well as spend a lot of time together. We took advantage of the opportunity for countless shenanigans and some of my favorite high school memories are from those trips. A couple of highlights include: I fell out of a canoe right before a performance in New Hampshire, and in New York I spent the night in a girl’s room who had a duck obsession that included a quacking alarm clock and probably close to 200 stuffed ducks surrounding my bed.
8. I gained so much confidence throughout my years of choir.
When I first started choir I was a very shy little girl and I remember mouthing the words instead of actually singing, which kind of defeats the purpose of the whole thing. Thankfully I got over this in a few months, but I was never very confident in letting other people hear my voice until I auditioned for a select choir in eighth grade. Since then, I’ve taken years of voice lessons and fallen in love with performing. I remember singing my first solo and how great it felt to be brave in that way. Now I have no problem singing or performing in front of people and I know that it’s only thanks to years of prior choir experience.
9. It offered me a unique means of expression.
It’s hard to describe the feeling at the point in a song where a chord is sung perfectly in tune and you get the chills running down your spine. The chemistry is just right and everyone is so connected, creating a sound that can only come from a place of pure emotion. A concert is a place where you can expel energy to create something beautiful. It’s an outlet like no other for conveying a feeling and expressing yourself.
10. More than anything, those people became my family.
I’m not sure if I fully realized this while I was a part of it, but choir brought people into my life that were more than just friends; they were my everyday support system and whether we liked it or not, we were stuck with each other. Choir was a constant for me throughout a lot of my life, so most of the other people involved were constants as well. I consider many of them to be my lifelong friends and I know that I could still go to them with anything. The bond that we’ve built over the years is one that I am forever grateful for. It’s beautiful to be able to develop one shared passion as a group of people who care so deeply for one another.
So, if you’ve never had the pleasure of being a part of a choir, I would definitely encourage you to try it! It might just enhance your life like it did mine.
