<p>This sounds SO familiar! My daughter has been in performance choirs since 2nd grade, involved in community theatre since 5th grade, in high school, if you are great in sport or even math - they will praise you and place you according to ability, but not in choir. On our own, she auditioned for regional and state honors choir, and made it. She also participated in 2 select choirs at a prestigious university - she has been able to switch between theatre and choir without a problem. This year, she was finally “old” enough to try for the show choir at her school, and she didn’t make it. The reason, her voice was too strong. Granted, it wasn’t too strong for state honors choir, but it was for the school one. It has been so frustrating, especially when you hear the top choir, and when doing solos many of the members can’t sing (but they do sound good as a group). We keep looking for opportunities to continue her training outside of school. She has been accepted to 3 excellent summer programs this summer as well, I don’t doubt her abilities, but it is frustrating. I just hope colleges recognize how often this happens.</p>
<p>Mommabear,
Colleges do not care one bit whether or not your D has participated in H.S. choir. They do care about how well your D auditions for them and whether or not her H. S. training in dance, music, and acting has prepared her to do well in their program.</p>
<p>Dancersmom - Your daughter’s story sounds very much like my daughter’s HS story. In our case, the HS choir director wanted D only for the upper level concert choir but refused to consider her for the jazz choir. D already belonged to a private choir that was head and shoulders above the caliber of the HS choirs and she wanted to expand her horizons. She was the lead in most school musicals so her voice and adaptability was broad. After three years of rejection from jazz choir she auditioned for the local community college jazz choir and was accepted immediately (she was dual enrolled in HS/college). The head of the music department at her HS confided in me that it was clearly a personality conflict and that he sat in on auditions and felt D really deserved a spot in jazz choir. There are lots of other ugly details to the way this spiteful teacher treated D but she held her head high and pushed forward. It’s now five years later and D has her BFA in MT and is doing what she loves. HS jazz choir didn’t make a difference one way or the other and the teacher was replaced last year.</p>
<p>Given how many stories here are so similar, it makes me wonder if it wouldn’t be a healthy thing to write a letter to your school, upon graduation, to give feedback. I don’t mean to do so in a vindictive way - but in a “hey, here’s some feedback to improve your program?” way. If this were done once your kid graduates, they would know it is not about your kid - but about the program. I think this would be especially useful in the instances where there clearly was a political reason or nasty attitude that led to holding your kid back.</p>
<p>jeffandann, that is so good to hear! I’m a high school sophomore and haven’t had any leads in school shows (yet). There’s a surprising lot of competition in my area, and even though I could audition for smaller shows and possibly get leads, I usually try to do what I will learn from. I know all my experiences have prepared me in a whole different way than being a big fish in a small pond. Things could change in the next two years, but I doubt it and reading that definitely helped me not to mind!</p>
<p>Thanks to modern technology, we are able to easily analyze the acoustic output of singers in all styles. What we know is that consistent forward placement reduces the intelligibility of the text. That reduction occurs because in order to maintain consistent forward placement throughout the vocal range, one must slightly modify each vowel so that it blends with the preceding vowel. We also know that the forward placement that is necessary for classical singing is significantly different than that required for musical theatre and pop/rock singing.</p>
<p>So…I would take your daughter’s predicament as a compliment. Sounds to me as if her voice is unique and therefore she probably won’t “play (sing) well with others.” </p>
<p>In musical theatre and pop/rock the industry wants unique voices not cookie cutters. Many choirs require cookie cutter voices and in those situations, students with unique voices do not do very well and it can actually be detrimental to their vocal development. There have been good discussions about this in the past on this forum. Each choral director is different so its very difficult to truly understand your current situation without hearing what the director is teaching. However, I feel very confident in saying that success in choir does NOT predict success as a soloist. I frequently tell high school students that I work with to drop out of choir. My personal opinion is that it is detrimental to the voice unless the student has a VERY strong handle on their technique. Each situation is unique, so I work with each student as an individual when making these decisions. Yes, you can learn musician skills in choir, but I personally am not willing to sacrifice a student’s voice for improving musicianship. It does seem like more choral directors are taking an interest in voice pedagogy. Hopefully in a few years conversations like this will be a thing of the past and choral directors will be teaching functional voice usage alongside musicianship and team work skills.</p>
<p>Hope that helps.</p>
<p>VT</p>
<p>I am not a voice teacher.</p>
<p>While I don’t think NOT being in choir will be detrimental to the OP’s kid or other kids, if they get vocal training elsewhere, I don’t agree with Voice Teacher in post #26 that being in choir could be detrimental to the voice of an aspiring MT performer.</p>
<p>My D was in her school choir every year and their select choir as well. I don’t think my D got her voice or music training by being in choir. She got her voice training in voice lessons outside of school and got her music training in playing two instruments and her music theory from her private piano teacher. However, I think being in choir was worthwhile. At our school, if you want to be in the musicals, you really should be in the school music program which basically means being in Chorus (my D was also in Jazz Band). Anyone interested in pursuing performing arts, participates in the music program in some capacity at our school (and of course, many do it as a hobby). I don’t credit the choral program for teaching my kid, but I don’t think it was detrimental to her voice at all. She is now a professional singer and just fine. She is more of the soloist type and would likely not be cast in the chorus of a musical. However, she was fine in her college a capella group (which was more pop/rock anyway).</p>
<p>Yes, I am not worried about choir damaging my D’s voice at all – she’s not one to change her voice simply to fit in with their ideal; she knows that they have no credibility as far as musical theatre.
It’s just upsetting that there are not more opportunities in school for different types of voices. I know I’m not the only one that would rather listen to solos sung well by different types of voices rather than solos sung poorly by girls with the “right” voice.</p>
<p>My voice teacher suggested I quit choir after 1 1/2 years in the chamber choir because of the blending thing. I could do it fine but it was different from what she was teaching and basically blending with bad singers was making me worse. Also, I we learned nothing in there and just sang at a lot of community functions and wore out our voices.</p>
<p>This whole thread is making me less wistful that our HS has virtually no choir program to speak of. It’s a large part of why we have pursued so much training outside of school. She’s in the symphonic band - but not in the 15 member or so choir.</p>
<p>My d was the lead in our high school musicals all four years of high school and sang in all levels of chorus but very rarely did she get any solos in chorus because I know the chorus teacher wanted to be able to showcase other voices as well. We had a political situation in which one of our school board member’s daughters and a friend of d was her major competition for leading roles in all the shows. She frequently got solos in chorus as opposed to my d who did go on to all-state chorus. She loves choral singing and sings in an outstanding choral ensemble in NY that performs several times a season in Carnegie Hall, Essential Voices… just one of many choruses that exist in NYC with strong programs and well-connected directors.</p>
<p>MY D started with a new voice teacher about a month before starting high school choir. Our high school choir teacher is outstanding, and really knows how to teach kids to sing for choir.
The first voice lesson my D went to after starting choir the voice teacher said “What happened to your voice?” The voice teacher knew right away that she had been using her voice some other way.
My D said “I just started choir? Is that it?”
And the voice teacher said “Oh, I really don’t recommend you be in choir. It forces your voice to blend and is not going to improve your solo voice.”
I had fun explaining all this to the principal and counselor so we could drop choir.
So, yes, there is a big difference. Getting into choir is not an indicator if you can get into the music theatre game.</p>
<p>When this thread popped up a couple of weeks before school ended I had no idea I would be posting this six weeks later. We’ve told our son that while we defer to his good judgement, we’d prefer that he skip choir his senior year. </p>
<p>After school let out some moms and a dad started comparing notes on the behavior of the choir teacher. Our son had some reservations about this person, but lacking physical-threatening specifics we basically said, “Suck it up and deal with it.” When similar stories of favoritism, temper-tantrums, f-bombs here/there, etc. came out from this other kids a few of us banded together and paid a visit to the school’s admin. While we didn’t expect for them to fire him on the spot, we were disappointed that they basically said we’ll tell him he better not act that way in the future. We joked that those choir kids are a nefarious bunch, so who can blame the administration for taking these complaints with a skeptical eye (sarcasm). </p>
<p>The teacher combined with the double-secret probation administration along with 2 AP classes then finally auditions/Unifieds along with this commentary convinced us to say “It’s not worth it.” The shame of it he made All-State last year and thought it would be great if he could repeat that experience if not for someone who probably shouldn’t be a teacher. </p>
<p>Anyhoo, thanks for the comments and break a leg this year.</p>
<p>1stTimeLongTime, I almost could have written what you wrote. My daughter’s senior year was extra difficult due to dealing with a crazy chorus teacher. Efforts to talk to administration were futile; all we got were carefully-worded responses such as, “We’ll look into that.” At no time ever would they ever say the teacher was wrong, even when other parents also complained. The odd thing was that this teacher picked on the best kids who were good singers and good students. It was really bizarre. Yet no one from the school, except other parents, ever validated our concerns. We discouraged our daughter from dropping chorus because, well, she’s a singer. But in hindsight I wish she hadn’t had to deal with this during an already stressful senior year.</p>
<p>I’m really relieved to read this and know I’m not the only one with a crazy chorus teacher. I transferred to a new school last year (junior year) and was welcomed with open arms into one of the two prestigious choirs at my school. The teacher at first treated me like a prodigy because I did not grow up molded from his program and actually knew what I was doing. This was something he saw as impossible. Everything changed for me when my teacher went psycho. I got into a car accident one day on the way home from school and as a result was unable to attend the dress rehearsal for our winter concert of Handel’s Messiah. When I came back to school the next day he had already been informed by a friend of mine in the choir group what happened and pretended to be concerned. When he talked to me he put next to no effort at even pretending to be concerned for my safety the previous day and was only worried about how I would blend with the rest of the group from missing 1 rehearsal and finding me a place to sit. As revenge he made me sit on the edge of the stage next to the speaker that blasted in my ears all night. I was also forbidden from sitting with my choir which he had assigned singing female tenor to help the boys out and I had to sit with the Altos in the lowest level freshman choir. The year only got worse from there. He continued to call myself and a few other girls that were not his favorites out in class and use us as examples of what not to do and talk to us like we were in Elementary school. I had heard horror stories from a few of my friends who had quit the year before who urged me to quit when it started happening. One of these friends is applying to musical theatre schools too and was told by our director he just didn’t have “it” for this business and should reconsider his options. This friend won the Cappie (our region’s version of the NHSMTA program) for best Leading Male Actor in a Musical. So once again thank you all for sharing your stories as it has helped me gather the courage to not put up with this nonsense any longer and transfer classes! I do not mean that all choir teachers are bad as my previous one was the nicest woman in the world, but do not be afraid to stand up for yourself when you’re in a situation like I was!</p>
<p>Hello!
I’m a junior in high school, I was in Freshman vocal ensemble, and this year I’m in our vocal ensemble and show choir.
I’m going through the same things in the drama program I do at a different school, I don’t get leads often. Though my choir teacher was bugging me last year to audition for our VE.
Whats true in my school is that casting is very political, my choir director already knew who she was going to put in our VE before we even had auditions. I dont think it’s a reflection of her talent.
Thanks!</p>
<p>Let me just share my D’s experience. She went to a very big high school with over 4500 kids and over 600 in choir. She never got a female lead in a musical, not in school nor in Summer Stock. She did have the lead in two plays. And she wound up getting 3 BFA offers, two for Music Theater and one for Acting. I think the high school experience can be varied and not really related to chances of acceptance to an MT program. The folks at the MT colleges know what goes on in HS, they know what they’re looking for, so if you audition well you should be fine.</p>
<p>One last comment on some of the stuff about being in choir and it’s potential effect on solos, etc. My D was in choir 4 years straight, in the girls performing show choir one year, and the mixed performing show choir her junior and senior years. The two years she was in the mixed show choir they were ranked in the top 5 in the nation by the Show Choirs of America rankings. Every kid who auditioned for a performing arts program for college over the last three years (whether it be voice performance, MT, dance, or acting) got a spot in an excellent college program. That would be at least a dozen kids off the top of my head. So I wouldn’t get all bothered by whether choirs will or will not affect your ability to land a spot. Balance that with the joy these kids had in show choir; those were memories my D will have for a lifetime and she wouldn’t have missed being in show choir for anything.</p>
<p>It’s probably safe to say those complaining about crazy choir teachers are not having a wonderful time.</p>
<p>You’ll find that when auditioning for college theatre/MT programs, your resume will carry very little weight in the decision to offer a spot in a select program. It’s all about your audition at that moment, and any interview you may have with the evaluators that shows your personality and interest in their program. There are students with raw talent and charisma and little-to-no experience that are offered slots over students with extensive credits. Unless the evaluator is familiar with a particular school or training program, they won’t care a lick if you’ve had principal roles since you were 3 years old. They care that you have what it takes to grow as a performer, enhance their productions over the next 4 years, and show that you are open, willing and able to learn from them to successfully move on to the professional world of theater. You must also consider that many theater programs these days are “casting” their incoming classes, and may consider look, type, vocal part, etc. when offering spots. </p>
<p>IMHO, while I realize it happens more than it should, participation in HS choir shouldn’t be a nightmarish experience. Students should be involved because they enjoy it, not because they feel it may give them an advantage in the college audition selection process (if that’s the route they’re pursuing). If you hate every minute you’re there, and nothing will change moving forward, find something else to become involved in. Now, if it’s the only extracurricular activity on your college admission application, that’s another discussion entirely…</p>