Embracing the Struggle

Part 10: Choir Kids Are Made, Not Born, and Middle School is When We Make Them Consider the choir kid. I don't mean simply "a kid who is in choir," but rather the choir kid.  You know the one I'm talking about, the one that eats, sleeps and breathes choir. Who is obsessed with music and singing and seeks out as much choir in their lives as they possibly can. They probably end up a student leader and/or volunteering a great deal of their time to the choir program in high school, and they might even major in music in college. They will, at the very least, end up lifelong lovers of (and hopefully singers or supporters of) choral music, and will look back fondly on their choral experiences. They are that kid, who truly loves being in choir and giving their all to the choir, even if they never end up studying music past high school. Those kids aren't born, they are made. Kids who love to sing and sang from a very young age? Sure. I've encountered kids like t...

Part 9: Middle School Choir Colleagues are Awesome Middle school choir teachers are my tribe. One of the many benefits of my time as a middle school choir teacher was the fact that I met a great number of incredible people over the years. I think it takes a special type of personality to teach middle successfully...you have to be a little crazy, no question. Flexibility, a lot of energy, a good (and somewhat ridiculous) sense of humor are qualities I find most middle school teachers possess. I know a lot of great people who teach other levels, and I am sure I will meet many more, but I will always cherish the friendships I have built with other teachers who have been in the middle school trenches.  When I started teaching middle school, I knew only a few other middle school choir teachers in the whole state. I feel like at the time this was pretty standard for most of us. It seemed like the high school teachers all knew each other and hung out with each other at conferences ...

Part 8: Middle School Kids Can Sing Challenging and Interesting Repertoire My introductory story may come off sounding a little petty (and it is), so you've been  warned: Two years ago I took my auditioned mixed choir, Prairie Voices, to our state festival for adjudication. I had programmed some fairly advanced literature, as I usually did for that group: we sang Ungheresca (the song most people know as Tambur with Italian lyrics), a fast rhythmic a cappella song that I had sung in University Choir back at CU, the Michael Barrett/Raif Schmitt arrangement of Indodana (gorgeous South African piece), and Ain't You Got a Right to the Tree of Life by Caldwell and Ivory. It was a heavy set, but pretty standard for the type of rep that I liked to do with Prairie Voices by that point in time. So we sang our set, and sang it well. It wasn't an incoherent mess, we didn't sound like a choir that was just way out of its depth, not even close. It wasn't perfect either. Beca...