Ever since I could speak, I have been singing. In every single day of school from middle school to now my senior year of college, at least an hour of it has been spent in a music room or a chapel singing with a choir. These days have been some of the best, most influential, lesson-filled days of my life thus far. It is safe to say that I classify myself as a choir nerd, and I am not ashamed of that at all. There are so many things that countless hours of practice, sectionals, and singing with the choir has given me. Here are some of the best things that joining choir has to offer.

It engages my critical thinking.

From reading music with a large group, my quick thinking and problem solving skills have grown exponentially!

It gives me the opportunity to meet all kinds of people.

You don’t have to be a music major or the best singer out there to be in a choir. I love seeing the melting pot that creates a choir. It’s really cool to see people from all walks of life come together with the same interests, and each one of them bring something unique and diverse to the group that makes it so fun.

It is a unique way to express myself.

No matter how you are feeling on a given day- happy, heartbroken, hopeful, and everywhere in between- there is a song for that. Music has such an uncanny way of expressing the exact feelings that words fall short to do.

It gives me the chance to be an ambassador for my craft.

Wherever my academics, extracurricular activities, hobbies and volunteer work take me, my job is to represent the best of what these opportunities have to offer. The harder the choir works as a group, the more proud I am to represent something that has held my passion for the majority of my life. It is such an honor to be an ambassador for my school, the choirs, and what we can achieve when we work together as a team.

Travel opportunities are always around the corner!

Between my experiences with my high school’s and college’s choirs, I have had to opportunity to perform in festivals, sing in high schools, churches and cathedrals, go on tours in almost every state on the East Coast, and even had the chance to sing on a European tour. There is honestly no better feeling than seeing hard work pay off like that, and to do what I love best in amazing places all over the world.

It’s a great chance to network.

You never know who you will meet because of choir that will become a valuable colleague later in the professional world!

Practice can be just as rewarding as performance.

I can’t even begin to give an estimate of how many countless hours I have spent in a practice room at the piano, in my room watching videos of our repertoire, or in class practicing music that we will perform once or twice. While the act of performance is an example of hard work paying off, I think the most rewarding times happen in the small moments of rehearsal where a breakthrough happens: where magic is made.

It’s the perfect place to forget struggles and issues of life for a while.

Channeling feelings of stress, anger, and anxiety from everyday life and using it to work hard on a piece of music is one of the best stress relievers that I know.

Everyone is a leader in their own way.

Everyone in the ensemble has something to offer! There are so many opportunities for leadership.

It forces me to be accountable for myself…

And it also motivates me to come prepared and to lead by example.

It gives my brain a chance to think creatively and logistically at the same time.

It has been so often said that music is one of the few things that allows both sides of the brain to work simultaneously, and I fully believe that I think the hardest while reading music and singing the notes and words on a page.

We are a team.

No matter the background of life or area of study that we come from, we are a team, and we are all there for the common purpose of making really good music together; and that is what makes it so cool!

It’s fun!

Some of my favorite memories in life have happened somewhere between the beginning and end of a piece of music. Choir is an amazing way to express my passion, and I am forever grateful for the opportunities to be a part of something that great.