<p>The more I think about the OP’s question, the more I think that a freshman in high school should be able to make this choice on their own, as to what they’d prefer to do. In my opinion, no parent should be doing longterm planning of a child’s career in musical theatre when that child is 14 or 15 years old.</p>
<p>Extensive choral singing is detrimental to the development of the solo singing voice. One choir is fine, but I never encourage my private high school students interested in an MT career to do more than that. In fact, I discourage them from doing more than that.</p>
<p>Choir teaches students to blend their voices with others. Students interested in a solo career need to put their focus on developing their own unique sound, not learning to sound like others. Choir also tends to encourage a head voice dominant production from females which trains a different set of muscles than musical theatre singers need. Yes, belters need a strong head voice and sopranos of course need one as well, but the choral head voice is usually not resonant in the manner that is required by musical theatre. </p>
<p>College level choral singing is often much different. With a choir full of voice performance and musical theatre majors, choral directors can encourage a bigger/more resonant sound, which is better for the voices. Some choral training is beneficial for ear training and ensemble singing, but be careful not to take it too far.</p>
<p>Hope that helps.</p>
<p>VT</p>
<p>Here’s the rule my kids followed in high school…do what you want to do in terms of extracurriculars, even if you were never to go to college. Don’t do things to look good for college. None of their decisions when it came to activities were geared toward college, but they had all these things they just wanted to do because they liked doing them.</p>
<p>(my post is a follow-up to post 81, as I had not seen #82 when I posted)</p>
<p>VoiceTeacher, your post reminds me of something that happened with my MT daughter in high school. </p>
<p>In ninth grade, she got into All States for Chorus. In tenth grade, she won the State Scholarship Award for Voice (classical) and in 11th grade, she won the State Scholarship for Jazz (vocal), but in both 10th and 11th grades, she did not get into All State Chorus. (she did not attend 12th grade) At the All State Music Festival, it was highly unusual when she was given the state awards both years, to not already be on stage with the state chorus (in fact, the heads of the program commented to her about that). How do you win the highest voice award in the state and not make it into the chorus? But I recall on her evaluation for the audition for the chorus, it said her voice did not blend in enough and I guess she was meant to be more of a solo singer! (then again, she spent four years in college blending her voice in a capella!) Anyway, choral singing is different from solo singing to be sure. My daughter doesn’t attend any chorus call auditions in fact (now that she is out of college).</p>
<p>I have so much respect for the wisdom of a professional VT so thanks for weighing in VoiceTeacher. I have no idea why I was so drawn to this thread and yet despite my plan to shut up, I’m still losing the battle with my fingers. I think it was because I also had a knee jerk reaction to worrying about college too early as I started saying in #6 and as alwaysamom also stated in #81. But I did enjoy the various tangents the thread went to and also am glad it became interesting enough to draw your expertise in VoiceTeacher since that is a whole other angle that has nothing to do with admissions.</p>
<p>Soozievt, I can give an even simpler example of what you said above that I think is the same thing in action. My daughter was the leader of her a capella group her senior year of HS and was really bummed when she had to turn away a dear friend (since kindergarten) with a terrific voice who year after year auditioned but never got into the group. This gal thought this year, her senior year when her long time friend was in charge would be the one. She was/is a fantastic soloist especially in the rock genre. She could not blend. Didn’t mean she wasn’t really good because she was/is.</p>
<p>I like this thread, too and was hoping someone would weigh in more extensively on the whole choir angle. My daughter quit choir after being accepted into the “elite” chamber choir because she found it changing her sound in a negative way. It also was teaching her nothing in the way of reading music or sight-signing. Nothing. Piano lessons helped there but not certainly not choir. There was also an incredible amount of shuttling her around for performances that were really not furthering her goals and I was quite happy to see it go. If she’d loved it that would have been different but she did not.</p>
<p>The only thoughts she was giving to college admissions back then were grade related which turned out to be much less important than we expected.</p>
<p>Voiceteacher, I do respect your expertise, but I disagree with your blanket condemnation of choir. Choir was invaluable in training both my boys and my D. Now, their choir teacher was nationally recognized, and their choir was ranked higher than many college choirs–so maybe if they had had someone not as good, it would have been different; I can’t tell. But choir was a formative experience for them. They were in All State and All Eastern and really loved it.</p>
<p>First of all, when you talk about belting, I’m assuming you’re not including boys? My son sings a baritone-tenor and is not concerned with belting. In his case, choir really helped train him to sing on pitch, use proper vocalizations, have a good ear, and so on. He transitioned easily from choir to MT performances. As for girls, I also disagree about the resonance and the type of head voice. That may be true in a certain style of choir maybe? In the choir my kids were in that wasn’t the case. My older D has a lovely mezzo that is full of resonance and was enriched in choir. </p>
<p>Soozievt, it often happens that top soloists don’t make it into All State. It’s not just blending–it’s also pitch. You can get kids who don’t have the best solo voice be top ranked in All State because they are pitch perfect and did fantasically with sight reading and scales. IT’s hard for a girl to get in anyway.</p>
<p>connections, I understand what you mean about All States. My D did get into All State Chorus as a freshman. And she also scored as high as can be on sight reading and scales each year. The only negative comment on the score sheet was about blending the voice with others. The head of All States told my daughter that it was very unusual for the top voice award person both years (my D) to not also be in the chorus.</p>
<p>Connections - I’d say your kids were very lucky. I judge choral competitions from time to time and at the high school level, what you are mentioning is usually the exception and not the rule. Now, there are also regional differences that can make a huge difference. Bowling Green State University had an incredible choral program for many decades and northwestern Ohio had tremendous choral singers. Then again, when I judged a choral competition in Louisiana the results were drastically different with many choral directors not even holding a degree in vocal music. In fact, I spent a day doing a workshop for a teacher who had earned her degree in visual art and was placed in a school system teaching choir by Teach for America because she had an arts degree and extensive choral singing experience.</p>
<p>There are ALWAYS shades of gray and its easier to jump to black and white. In general, it has been my experience that students are better off choosing musical theatre opportunities over choral opportunities if a career in musical theatre is their goal. If there is an opportunity to work with an exceptional choral director of the highest caliber with extensive vocal knowledge and respect for non-classical styles, then by all means sing in choir. </p>
<p>VT</p>
<p>Thanks VoiceTeacher – you managed to put a huge smile on my daughter’s face! My daughter has always hated singing in choirs but no kid in her school has ever gotten a decent part in a musical at her high school without being in the choirs given the influence of the choral teachers on the musicals. So my daughter does Freshman choir and auditions for the select choirs. Does not make it because … she doesn’t blend her voice with everyone else! She said the hell with it after that and never went out for the choirs again and basically cost herself from a top role and was actually criticized just this year over her lack of interest in developing her MT skills because she did not choose to further participate in the school’s choral program. Somehow that was viewed as a bigger plus than taking solo voice lessons from someone with specific expertise in teaching MT (which she has for the past several years).</p>
<p>ActingDad - Those are the type of choral teachers that bother me. For most MT schools, at the end of the day we only care about how well you sing, act, and dance. Anything that can take you towards that goal, you should pursue. Anything that takes away from that goal, avoid.</p>
<p>Best,</p>
<p>VT</p>
<p>Not to belabor this, but in NJ All State, blending or not blending would not be enough to disqualify someone from All State. Maybe it’s different from state to state? You audition alone and are scored on scales, sight reading, a song, etc, but never with anyone else. One year there was a precocious opera singer in All Eastern, and you bet her voice didn’t ‘blend.’ As for choir, you were never disqualified for not blending. You might not get an acapella spot but the top choir had like 100 kids. Maybe it depends on how big the choir is too.?</p>
<p>Thank you, VoicrTeacher, for that eloquent explanation of the lasting effects of choral singing on a high school student. I, too, teach voice and when my students (particularly those wanting MT) come to me and say that they feel they need/want choir, I give them my reservations which you could have taken right out of my mouth. </p>
<p>Connections, I agree as well with VT that your kids were extremely lucky to have had the choral experience that they did. I also agree that choir can teach a variety of many beneficial skills, but I still hold that, for the most part, there is a bit of a consequence paid by the solo voice. I have a student that in 9th grade joined 3 or 4 of her school’s choirs and this kid had the definition of a solo voice, and I knew she wanted to pursue MT, and so I (fairly frequently) stressed how it was not necessary. This particular kid really found a home with her choir and I also knew from the beginning there was no talking her out of it, so it was what it was. She was very lucky to have gone to a school with, in my opinion, probably the best choral director in our area, so she did get an awful lot out of it, and certainly learned a lot in terms of theory, sight singing and aural skills, however, four years later, we have spent a good deal of time counteracting her “choir” voice while technically working her solos. </p>
<p>An interesting discussion…thanks again for sharing your thoughts on this. VT, I believe I’m going to hang on to your response so I have can pull a “second opinion” when my kids look at me like I’m crazy for discouraging choir! :)</p>
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<p>Yeah, it must work differently from state to state. It has been a while, but I recall that she had to sing with a quartet for the audition (and she could not choose who was in it) and so she was somewhat at the mercy of who made up the quartet in her audition. The sight singing part was alone, yes (she is adept at that). The audition for the state scholarship in voice was also alone. So, anyway, for the choral audition, blending was a part of it and I recall that those were her only critical comments. (we live in Vermont)</p>
<p>My dauther can’t sight read to save her life. That was another thing that killed her when she went out for the high school select choirs as the kid who played the piano their whole life with the meek voice scored higher because they could also sight read. </p>
<p>But seriously – whether as an MT performer or in a choir – when is this actually an important skill? I mean when does a choir performer or an MT performer ever sing something they’ve actually never heard before? Play it for my daughter once and she can repeat it back on pitch. She’s got lots to work on with resonance and tone (she’s pursuing an Acting BFA as its her more natural skill) but this part at least isn’t the problem. Isn’t that a more useful skill than sight reading? I know this thread is going off on a tagent but I often wondered what the point is to grading on sight reading skills.</p>
<p>I come back to a point I made earlier in this thread. Is it OK for a high school kid to actually be a high school kid? To sing in choirs and be around their friends and still work to get into an MT program? My D has three different auditions today in Chicago. She has spent years singing in choirs, the last two within one of the top ranked high school show choirs in the country. And she would not have traded the experiences, the friends she made, the fun they had at competitions, the people she’s met, etc, etc for anything. At the same time she has worked with a very good vocal coach for the past 5 years who has trained her for her auditions, and who has told her she has a very mature voice for her age. Both her voice teacher and other professionals have told her she has the talent to get a MT spot. Whether she does or not will be contingent of course on her auditions, and whether her look fits, all the stuff we all know about. </p>
<p>At the end of the day, if my daughter gets a spot or not, I think she will never forget all the great times she had in high school, how she grew as a person and as a performer, how she made friends that will last a lifetime. If you ask me, it would have been absurd to ask her to choose between voice and choir. Both are part of who she is as a person. She wouldn’t be the great kid she is without both.</p>
<p>jeffandann. There are those who have obsessed and trained for years who get in. And kids that are barely trained that get in. I have been to several master classes given by “top” school teachers. I really went to check out the competition. There is competition. But it is very similar to high school. There are a couple that you say “OMG, they are SO good”. and the rest are good. In those classes I have seen someone who I thought looked very polished not wow me and someone who seemed very untrained blossom with a few adjustments. My son is a real high school kid. While he went to Broadway Theatre Project summer after sophomore year, he turned down Mpulse and TPAP last summer to “goof off” (killed us!). He quite 2 of his 3 vocal groups this year because he wanted time to “hang out”. High school is their last chance to be a kid. Don’t second guess the past. I’m a firm believer in “it was meant to be”. As parent’s we want them to have everything they want. We have no control. I’m hoping she gets what is right for her and she is VERY happy. You are a good dad who wants the best and I see your worry. We are all here for you- thick or thin.</p>
<p>Theatremom, sounds like we have similar philosophies. I’m not worried about my D at all; she will land on her feet when all is said and done. My concern is for some kids who may sacrifice their high school years inadvertently. My sister in law coached college Level 1 athletes, many of which sacrificed a “normal” high school existence for travel teams and such. But when they got to college they hated their sport and had trouble adjusting because they Denver really figured some things out in high school.</p>
<p>I really hope some of the MT kids don’t have the same thing happen to them. I fear for that when I read decisions are made to remove oneself from experiences like choir. Of course that’s only based on my D, but in general I have always felt we want kids to grow up too fast.</p>
<p>Funny enough, I have been that sports mom- and learned. My daughter is 6 years older than my son. She was a fabulous softball player (and basketball) and played travel for both sports from 10-17. We bought into it all. We traveled the country and plotted college. Her grades came LAST. Summer after junior year in high school she needed heart surgery. It was all gone. She was lost. She had no other identity. No other friends. It has been a long road but she is happy and cuts hair! Nicest kid ever! But you change your perspective. It all works out.</p>
<p>Glad to hear things worked out for your daughter</p>