Choir kid: (noun) a different kind of human. We are loud, obnoxious, and really just want to sing whenever we are around another of our kind. To sum it up, we are basically just a hot mess, but I would never trade being a choir kid hot mess for anything else in this world. It made me a better person.

I learned teamwork. This is something that every choir kid learns from the very beginning. It is the key ingredient to having the best sound you possibly can. When you have have an 8 part piece of music and you have a total of two people per part, teamwork is a necessity. You can not rely on the person beside you to do all the work for you. You have to work as a team of individual machines to get that A+ crescendo your director is listening for.

I learned the art of patience. This one was hard because you always have that one rehearsal that just absolutely sucks. It's always because of either your section or another section. When these days happen, you are stuck reworking, re-singing, and even relearning the piece of music. I remember one time we had to sing one bar 20 times correctly, and if we just slightly sang out of tune, it was back to one. Yes, I thought this was the worst possible thing to ever happen at the time, but ultimately it taught me how to get through things with patience and a positive attitude.

I learned leadership. In my experience with choir, I was blessed to be one of the section leaders, and that was not always an easy role. When it is your turn to step up, you have to do it full force: doing the counts, trying your best to fix mistakes, and even kind of running rehearsal if your director wasn't there. You are the one that the others look up to. You are the sound that everyone listens for, even your mistakes. You have to sometimes set your nerves aside and sing for the whole choir. It's a tough job, but I would have never learned how to be a leader without this experience.

I learned true friendship. When you are stuck with these people five days of the week, you have to learn how to love them. You travel together. You have little jam session after rehearsal. You have to ride on a bus for eight hours together. You get stared at in public because there are 30 kids walking into a Chick-Fil-A... together. You have group chats that are basically just to say stupid, silly things to make each other laugh. You have dance breaks in the middle of rehearsal. You take way too many group selfies that never turn out just right. You have inside jokes that only you understand. You grow together. You help each other out. You may cry together. You sometimes even FaceTime each other to rehearse. You become a family. Being in choir helped me make lifelong friendships that I will cherish the rest of my life.