Choir has been a part of my life for the past eight years. The only reason I joined back in the fifth grade was because I asked my parents the night before decisions were due if I could do band, and the answer was no. So, my mom suggested I join the choir just for the year and see what I thought of it. She said, “If your father won’t pay for an instrument, we’ll go with the free instrument; your voice.”
Up until this point, at as young as three-years-old I would race to grab my mom’s iPod whenever we were on a trip or there was downtime. The songs on this sacred iPod ranged from Toxic by Brittany Spears, Forget You (Explicit Version) by Celo Green, to Rockstar by Nickelback (my personal favorite). I didn’t realize my love for music until much later in life, but I knew one thing in fifth grade. Not even knowing what “Choir” meant, I figured if I would be able to sing Nickelback with other people, I would be a happy camper. Spoiler: we didn’t sing Nickelback.
Choir was the one constant I had through all my struggles over the past eight years. Whether it was the never-ending nightmare of middle school or the beginning of freshman year with the online choir, it was always a given to have music and singing prominent in my life.
In the final months of my sophomore year of high school, I auditioned for Acapella per the request of my director, Mrs. Pickering. This whole situation was a last-minute decision considering I learned the group audition music in a day, sent in my solo audition an hour before the deadline, and made a pact with my friend Paige that wouldn’t care about the results and only focus on having fun.
This canon event changed the course of my life. I may be a little dramatic, but in a sense this is true. Not knowing how acapella would be one of the most important parts of my life, I auditioned and got into the all-treble-voices acapella group, Fermata Nowhere.
The next fall, I returned to school with every Monday and Friday after school being designated for rehearsals. My first year in Fermata was filled with happiness, anxiety before performances, and making friends with the other girls in my group. From the outside, we may have all looked like a random group of people all thrown together, but our love and dedication to making music connected us.
Every year Fermata Nowhere and On A Side Note audition to perform at the Nordonia Acafest, an acapella festival. After being scored, an acapella group is either asked to perform on the Friday night showcase, perform at some point during the day on Saturday, or not perform at all. The Friday night showcase is always the goal each group wants to attain if they can go.
I remember specifically the day we were sitting in rehearsal and Mrs. Pickering told us the news. No one expected what was coming or going to be said from her; we were performing on Friday night. This had never happened before in Fermata’s history. We were the first group of Fermata to perform at the Friday night showcase.
Not only did this seem daunting as Acafest is like a concert on steroids, but it felt as though the expectation was moved up another level. Due to the excitement surrounding our performance, every ounce of my being went into making sure our set was perfect. Obviously, perfection is unattainable, but you could feel the energy radiating off of us all during each rehearsal.
The experience of performing on Friday night may sound weird for some, but it feels as though you’re performing for a real audience. Having the energy of all the different groups Friday night mixed with the adrenaline of performing makes a very responsive and engaging audience. You have peers from all different areas of Ohio cheering you on, hyping you up during big moments, and bonus you spend the next day, Saturday, participating in different workshops with all acapella people.
Because of this moment, I began to take Acapella more seriously from this point on. It also bled into my Choir career as well. My junior year was my first year in Select Choir, which is the auditioned choir here at GHS. I had emotions mixed with anxiety and excitement each day because I dreamt of being in Select since my brother first got in when he was in high school. Seeing how musical they were, the level of music they sang, and the experience of being in a group like that and what it did for my brother, I dreamt of the day I got to sing in Select.
Getting in my senior year, and my last year in Fermata and Select, I had goals. Oh boy, did I have goals. The level of work we, as a choir, put into Select to achieve what we did, is unreal. For Fermata, in my opinion, I was disappointed in the results, but along the way, I learned valuable lessons. Not only did I learn from working with new people, but my director and fellow seniors helped me to take more mature approaches to the situations dealt to me. It’s a hard pill to swallow when your goals or dreams don’t go the way you want them to. I never really understood that pain until this year.
Although some days of senior year I wouldn’t wish to relive, there are others I would give up anything to go back to. From singing over the summer at Fermata rehearsals, Singing different songs in Select like Rejoice, Consecrate, or Sing Me to Heaven, to my final concerts on the GHS stage. I didn’t think singing and music would be such a large part of my life, however, this passion crept up on me. Through each achievement or goal met, my love for the GHS choral program grew more and more.
To my fellow choir seniors, thank you for being the best friends I could ask for. To Mrs. Pickering, thank you for all of your guidance, support, and dedication to our music. To the underclassmen, enjoy the moments, good or bad, as they come. Everything is a lesson if you choose to see it that way.
Being a “Choir kid” is always taken with a negative connotation or used as a negative term. If I ever get called a “choir kid” in college, I will smile.