To Sing or Not to Sing

[The Sevenshot Kid]

Yo. I'm currently in the midst of picking my classes for my junior year of high school and I wanted to get some advice on a class I'm thinking of joining: choir.

I don't know how to sing. All I do is sing along with my favorite songs and I've been told that my country singing voice is pretty decent. I asked some of my friends in choir about joining and they didn't have any solid advice since they had been singing in church and stuff since an early age so I decided that I would ask you guys.

Do any of you have experience joining a choir without knowing anything about singing? How did it work out and is it something that you would recommend?

[Seil]

I say do it. The purpose is to teach, here, so at least you'll learn about breathing, posture and diapraghm control. (Which is more interesting than it sounds.) That being said, it's an easy class with lots of girls, in my experience.

[Token]

Yo. I'm currently in the midst of picking my classes for my junior year of high school and I wanted to get some advice on a class I'm thinking of joining: choir.

I don't know how to sing. All I do is sing along with my favorite songs and I've been told that my country singing voice is pretty decent. I asked some of my friends in choir about joining and they didn't have any solid advice since they had been singing in church and stuff since an early age so I decided that I would ask you guys.

Do any of you have experience joining a choir without knowing anything about singing? How did it work out and is it something that you would recommend?

choir is seriously fantastic, but you have to be committed, or you shouldn't take it. it was without a doubt some of the best experiences of my life, when everyone put in the necessarry effrort.

That being said, it's an easy class with lots of girls, in my experience.

As a choir kid: fuck you, it's peopel whit that srot of attituede that drags the group down :mad::mad::mad:

[Gregness]

As a musician myself, I think what Seil meant was that if you're doing it right, it's a difficult, extremely rewarding class with lots of girls.

[Seil]

(I'm offering incentive here.) And it's true, for the most part. Then again, me mum is a vocal prof, so I was "volunteering" to arts classes and stage shows when I was young and got into it quick.

If you do decide to do it, the best advice I can offer is this : don't be nervous. You're gonna be anyway, but try not to be nervous. Chances are, there's gonna be some people like you, who are unsure of what's going on, and experienced people who two or three years ago felt just as dumb.

EDIT Mr. Greg got it.

[The Sevenshot Kid]

(I'm offering incentive here.) And it's true, for the most part. Then again, me mum is a vocal prof, so I was "volunteering" to arts classes and stage shows when I was young and got into it quick.

If you do decide to do it, the best advice I can offer is this : don't be nervous. You're gonna be anyway, but try not to be nervous. Chances are, there's gonna be some people like you, who are unsure of what's going on, and experienced people who two or three years ago felt just as dumb.

EDIT Mr. Greg got it.

Thanks for the advice. I'm definitely gonna be putting it down on my schedule. And I'd be lying if I said that this wasn't at least partially motivated by a girl (not unlike my decision to join track.)

My only real question now is if they can seriously teach anyone to sing. I have some serious doubts about my singing ability and it would be embarrassing to be declared beyond help.

[Seil]

My only real question now is if they can seriously teach anyone to sing. I have some serious doubts about my singing ability and it would be embarrassing to be declared beyond help.

...>>

Are there really teachers like that?

[Loyal]

Well, there was that one guy in Citizen Kane.

[CelesJessa]

Go for it. I was in choir for quite awhile in school, and it's quite fun.

[Bobbey]

I took choir lessons, both classical and jazz, for about 7 years, and I must say it is a worthwhile experience. It especially helped that my teacher loved what he was doing and had a very optimistic view on music and life in general. Hopefully your teacher is the same. I've had terrible choir teachers in the past as well (one who was more of an acting teacher who couldn't really sing well and the other was a lesbian/sexist who purposely gave us women's rights songs to sing with modified lyrics as to make women look like the better sex and gave terrible songs to sing for the guys. She also would punish any guy in the tenor or bass section for something as small as a whisper while girls would be yapping around without any consequence at all). You also get to be more in focus with yourself, and naturally, the whole breathing thing like Seil said, very important as well.

[bluestarultor]

I've had... mixed experienced with choir. I used to sing a ton and eventually got into the kids' choir in church, which had a terrible director who was more concerned with drowning us all out in her attempt to destroy the piano keys than she was in actually fostering the kids' egos. It was very much her way or the highway and she treated it like a professional choir in many ways and was, as my mom eloquently put it to my young self, "a bitch on wheels."

That said, she at least recognized talent and put me on harmony specifically because she knew I could handle it, which I shared with two kids who were at the time twice my age.


Eventually I quit that, spent a year down, and got into the school choir with easily one of my least favorite teachers ever who made us sing a ton of religious music, and what wasn't religious was girl's songs. Just to be extra-special vindictive of my talent and vocal range, she put me as designated lead on the girls' solos, since it was divided into male and female sections. As such, I knew the soprano solo for any given song better than I knew the tenor part I was supposed to sing in the concerts, while other guys with less range got the male solos. As such, I just didn't attend any of the concerts for that year and never went back, taking my C without giving a rip.



Basically, I'll say that singing in itself is something you either get right away or don't. I happen to be very musically inclined and can memorize music by ear very quickly and just always "got it." For other people, singing itself isn't what I'd call hard, but singing well takes a lot of practice, and talent doesn't hurt. Performing is a VERY rewarding experience in my experience, which is the only thing that kept me sane in band as I hated that for years on end (I was a doormat when I was younger and somehow always got convinced to keep taking it).

I'll say take the class. If you don't click right away, that just means you have to work a bit harder is all. Singing is the one thing you can do no matter where you are (although you might get funny looks) and it never hurts to be able to do it well.

[Gregness]

*snip*

...As such, I just didn't attend any of the concerts for that year and never went back, taking my C without giving a rip...

*UNIMPORTANT TO MY POINT*



Jesus blues, what the hell's with your music teachers? For one thing, in the music program at my high school if you just up and didn't come to any concerts you FAILED. My teacher was a seriously cool dude, a fantastic musician, is totally one of my role models, and took professionalism seriously. It's basically unthinkable for me to just not show up to something.

[bluestarultor]

Jesus blues, what the hell's with your music teachers? For one thing, in the music program at my high school if you just up and didn't come to any concerts you FAILED. My teacher was a seriously cool dude, a fantastic musician, is totally one of my role models, and took professionalism seriously. It's basically unthinkable for me to just not show up to something.

My district's music program was like the rest of my district: irredeemably awful. It took me literally six years after I finally quit band to pick up my clarinet again because it took me that long to get over how much I'd hated every last one of my teachers and how miserable they'd made the experience. I never hated performing, I never hated the clarinet, but I hated band and every last person I dealt with in it with a passion and it left a bad taste in my mouth up to the present.

Basically, I wouldn't have cared if I failed or not. Maybe I attended one of the two concerts, but I have no recollection of it. After I neglected to take choir again, I didn't sing much, either, and now have next to no air.



Or, in other words, my school's music program was so exceedingly awful that it pretty much completely ruined music for me from the time I was thirteen until just recently and I'm only just now over it enough to be trying to build my air and playing skills back.

Or, more clearly, my choir experience made me limit my singing for about a year afterward when I normally loved to sing and my band experience made me unable to even look at my instrument for six years, with the combined experience making me hate music for a full decade.



Edit: Wow. You know, I never actually broke it down before. That's... actually really enlightening.

[rpgdemon]

And I'd be lying if I said that this wasn't at least partially motivated by a girl (not unlike my decision to join track.)

My advice to you about this: Do what you like, not what could get you to get together with some girl. You want to be happy taking your classes/doing track et cetera, and if things go sour with the girl, you don't want a life built around doing things for/around her.

[Seil]

^^^^^^^^

[Amake]

Interesting tidbit: In a study of the effectiveness of the various methods with which people relax from this mad, mad world it was found choral singing is in many ways the healthiest activity a person can possibly take part in. Compared to sex, fancy meals, going to the movies or the theater or music performances or getting a massage, hiking, debating and if memory serves exercising, drinking, reading a book or playing the videogames, getting together with a group of people and singing is a whole other level of relaxing.

[The Sevenshot Kid]

My advice to you about this: Do what you like, not what could get you to get together with some girl. You want to be happy taking your classes/doing track et cetera, and if things go sour with the girl, you don't want a life built around doing things for/around her.

I'm definitely doing this for myself. It's just that she serves as a bit of motivation for me to try harder to succeed. I'm definitely going to be taking the class and trying my best to learn from and enjoy the experience.

[BloodyMage]

Always sing.

Always.

I can't think of a situation that wouldn't be improved with singing.

[bluestarultor]

Always sing.

Always.

I can't think of a situation that wouldn't be improved with singing.

Being underwater comes to mind.

[Magus]

Bank heist with sound detectors.

Swiss Alps during avalanche season.

Being surrounded by sleeping lions.

Murder scene.

Car wreck.

Suicide hotline.

Business meeting.

Monastery where the monks take a vow of silence.

Art museums.

"Don't Break the Sugar Bowl" world championships (first annual event still ongoing since 1987 because Lucy "Lips Are Sealed" Domanick refuses to give into "Silent" Sam Barber by laughing, despite the hilarious things he has been doing with his eyebrows.)

[Token]

Being underwater comes to mind.

Wrong. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpqdexBnNkM)

Bank heist with sound detectors.

Sing this beforehand so you know what to do. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0vWoWKUWv4)

Swiss Alps during avalanche season.

Sing this and be calmed by the knowledge that you deserved your death. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J7UPSh2Xxw)

Being surrounded by sleeping lions.


TOO FUCKING EASY. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LBmUwi6mEo)

Murder scene.

I've gotta say, I'm simply struck dead that you didn't see this one coming. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LabxxEgMTjo)

Car wreck.

Got a few more that could have worked, but this came on my iTunes as I was typing, so hell yeah. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOOtDhi0T6g&feature=related)

Suicide hotline.

I could have gone so much less tactful. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTwJo0HeNmU)

Business meeting.

And then they sold everything. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz9DMDEZ7Tw)

Monastery where the monks take a vow of silence.

Suck it. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=131l-Lsu7Og&feature=related)

Art museums.

Music is art. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUwQbFlm1h4)

"Don't Break the Sugar Bowl" world championships (first annual event still ongoing since 1987 because Lucy "Lips Are Sealed" Domanick refuses to give into "Silent" Sam Barber by laughing, despite the hilarious things he has been doing with his eyebrows.)


Refuge in audacity at its finest.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaUq-i3At5w)

[Seil]

Being underwater comes to mind.

The best place to sing is Under The Sea. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgA2xo0HYrE)

[The Sevenshot Kid]

The best place to sing is Under The Sea. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgA2xo0HYrE)

Bravo. Bravo, good sir.

[PyrosNine]

Sing, sing a song
Make it simple
To last your whole life long
Don't worry that it's not good enough
for anyone else to hear
Just sing, sing a song. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpHP7K8Vz0Y)

Though it ends up coincidentally going under the sea in the vid...but the battlefield is the best place to be singing.

[Toastburner B]

More proof singing fits anywhere!

Being underwater comes to mind.
Depends on how you are underwater. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkhTA6MQ3BQ)

Bank heist with sound detectors.
It would so be worth it just to sing this while the cops are after you. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXhuso4OTG4)

Swiss Alps during avalanche season.
No mountain will dare avalanche you if can pull this off. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfTEhUECaXk)

Being surrounded by sleeping lions.
Really, Token already took the one and only possible answer for this, so so here it is again, only a cappella. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMfdFLitXjE)


Murder scene.
Classy song about a murderer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEllHMWkXEU).

Car wreck.
Who's going to drive you home (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbTjzZzfR7w) (because you just wrecked your car)?

Suicide hotline.
Really, is there any choice? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-diB65scQU)

Business meeting.
Basically comes down to this, right? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k5ooaufrLM)

Monastery where the monks take a vow of silence.
You could say that monks enjoy the sound of silence... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1yVSuDXk2g).

Art museums.
What if I sing ART (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EG-A_qTAKEI) SONGS (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkvLq0TYiwI)?

"Don't Break the Sugar Bowl" world championships (first annual event still ongoing since 1987 because Lucy "Lips Are Sealed" Domanick refuses to give into "Silent" Sam Barber by laughing, despite the hilarious things he has been doing with his eyebrows.)

Really, I have no idea what is going on in that sentence, but I'm sure Carl Sagan could explain it to me. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc)

[Archbio]

Bank heist Art museums.

Just shameful. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGXPEKychuU)