Choir Camp

[scorched_mirth]

On Saturday, I took my daughter to a birthday party. Afterwards, we were in Seattle Center for some food and there was an event where a number of summer camps were advertising their programs at booths. On the stage were the kids from choir camp

Comments

[singingnettle]

That's a real problem with choruses. A lot of directors don't have the skill of letting the music go free.

I was in this technically gorgeous small chorus when I was in high school. But the teacher was a maniac who terrorized everyone. People cried at every session. But if we got there and he was out sick, we'd spend the 45 minutes running through the repetoire on our own, and it would be fifty times better than when he was there.

One day he and I had this huge blazing fight after he'd reduced one girl to sobbing and I yelled at him, "You can't scare people into making a joyful noise!" He walked out and I quit the chorus at the end of the term.

He later told me if I hadn't left, I would have gotten the senior music scholarship. He would have told me that just to be mean and make me regret that I left...but I still don't really regret it (well, maybe a little, sometimes) because that felt like such a perversion of music.

[qweeeejk]

Sounds like a great idea for a comedy act.

(My current work-in-progress will be a medley of modern pop hits in Gregorian chant. It will be finished off with an "Amen" to the tune of Dueling Banjos.)