<p>I disagree. It’s using your voice in a different way, but if you are using proper technique blending with others shouldn’t be very hard unless you choose to make it so or just flat out refuse because you feel it’s somhow beneath you. As far as having a lousy choir director who wants you to sing incorrectly, that’s a whole other matter.</p>
<p>I think my D CAN blend her voice. For example, in college for four years, she was in an award winning coed a capella group and was the musical director and even wrote many of their arrangements. As a professional singer/songwriter, she writes many harmonies and blends her voice with her back up singers. Further, she has been a back up singer for other artists. People often comment about the harmonies in her performances in gigs.</p>
<p>But back in high school to get into All State CHORUS, here you audition as a quartet and so your evaluation/adjudication is not based on your own solo performance but on how the quartet is and so you are somewhat at the mercy of the quartet that the chorus teacher put you in for this audition. For the state scholarship awards in All States, you audition by yourself, and she fared better in that, even though that is harder to attain here. </p>
<p>That said, my D is not really the chorus type overall and doesn’t attend chorus calls in NYC, but tends more to audition for parts. She is also not going to be a chorus girl in professional musicals, given her height of 5’3".</p>
<p>Opinions can vary, but scientific inquiry is a little more reliable, so here are a few reads worth checking out.</p>
<p>It appears that choral people DO prefer a less resonant tone:
<a href=“Choral research -”>Choral research -;
<p>“The Lombard effect is the tendency to increase vocal intensity in response to increased background noise.” A choral setting puts singers in such a situation.
<a href=“http://famona.tripod.com/ent/cummings/cumm109.pdf[/url]”>http://famona.tripod.com/ent/cummings/cumm109.pdf</a></p>
<p>Individual voices in a choral setting have fewer and weaker upper partials. You need JSTOR Access for this article, but the abstract on the front page is helpful.
[JSTOR:</a> An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie](<a href=“An Acoustical Study of Individual Voices in Choral Blend on JSTOR”>An Acoustical Study of Individual Voices in Choral Blend on JSTOR) </p>
<p>VT</p>
<p>^^^I did like this quote from the Choral Research article cited above:</p>
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</p>
<p>And this one:</p>
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</p>
<p>Perhaps choir is not so bad after all…</p>
<p>EmsDad, I love these quotes-- As I’ve said, my kids’ own experience in choir has not been at all what others are describing. They were certainly not required to a ‘breathy’ upper tone! Are we maybe talking about different style choirs? My kids sang Brahms, Bernstein, gospel, African and Asian classical & folk, etc—all pieces requiring a balanced classical sound. NJ All State and All Eastern also certainly did not ask for breathy upper registers, nor did they test for blending, as I’ve said. My kids’ choir teacher worked on blending not so much by suppressing voices but mostly by physical placement for balance, by knowing each choir member’s voice type cold. (She moved them around for optimal balance depending on the piece they were singing.) There were about 150 members in the top choir.</p>
<p>By the way, my kids’ highly regarded voice teachers were also highly regarded choir teachers, so the two don’t have to be either/or. There was <em>some</em> transition with my daughter, who has a very big mezzo, from choir to solo, but that was very easily remedied by her voice teacher, as described above by EmsDad. My sons, both baritones, had no transition.</p>
<p>I’m only going on like this because for my kids, choir was a formative experience, in which they became very well trained musically, particularly for their ear, technique and diction. Also, All State and All Eastern were wonderful experiences for them. Geez, my son got to sing in Carnegie Hall at 17! I realize for some people choir can be negative and I’m not discounting that experience, only sharing that for my kids, it was very positive. They did have the benefit of singing with choir teachers who really knew what they were doing. Top teachers in all arenas are always a blessing.</p>
<p>@connections - my personal experience was very similar to what you describe. I sang in choir from age 5 through college and then into my adult years. I did pop and musical theatre solos in high school, two operas in college, and did a couple of community theatre shows after college. I had nothing but great experiences in choir and sang everything from tribal chants to Ives in many varying styles, including two concerts with major symphony orchestras - what a thrill! In college, I could barely keep up with the fantastic VP voices that dominated my section. At least one of them made it to Broadway. We averaged about one concert a week in college plus tours. Some of my fondest memories are from high school and college choir tours. </p>
<p>I took voice after college with a professional opera singer with a PHD in vocal pedagogy and he never noted any problems resulting from my many years of choir. </p>
<p>I guess it just depends on your personal situation.</p>