Flawed Logic

In my choir there are roughly 95 people (100 if you add the people taking it as an independent study). A class this size can really be frustrating, especially with only one director and no teachers' aids. In every class there are going to be distractions, but in choir these distractions are more prevalent. There is one more frequently reoccurring problem with choir, no body sings out and no one has confidence (except for everyone in Encore). There are 20 people in Encore. There are only 20 people carrying the weight of a 100 person choir. It does not work out! I walk out of choir almost crying because my voice hurts so bad from screaming my part in the rest of the Altos' ears! Right now, my director is having me walk around and help people out, and today as we attempted to do one of our hardest songs, I walked over to help a few freshmen altos out. They smiled at me and said "We're so glad you are coming over here. We like it when you sing our part loudly, it makes it easy." This statement really made me mad. How can these girls not want to put their best effort forth? By me screaming in their ears, they are not learning anything. They aren't learning to listen for their notes in the accompaniment, they aren't learning to sight-read, and they are being lazy. It just frustrates me when I see some people who are trying really hard to succeed and others who could honestly care less.

Something that my director always says is: "If you aren't hitting the right notes, don't be the loudest one in the room." This REALLY aggravates me. Some people aren't sure if they are singing the right notes or not, and when she says this, they drop out and stop singing. This is not helping anything because now we don't know what to fix because the only people you can hear are the 5 altos that are in Encore. A very wise, hairless, choir director that I had my 8th grade year and freshman year would always, ALWAYS, tell us to make loud mistakes. He would always encourage us to take pride in what we are doing and to do it with confidence. "We can fix mistakes that we can hear, but if I can't hear them, I can't help you fix them." As crazy as this sounds, I make mistakes too. (I know, you must all be in complete shock.) I can remember sooo many times freshman year when I was in Mixed Choir that I would make a loud mistake, and Mr. Baldman Helzer would give me a disgusted look, we would all laugh about it, and then fix it. This is how we learn, we learn from our mistakes. I make them loudly and proudly, and then I fix it the next time. A large chunk of sight-reading is trial and error... ERROR! It's okay to make mistakes as long as you fix them, but apparently not for the Syracuse Choir.

Dani, who is a brunette, senior version of me, is an alto in choir as well, and lately we have been discussing ways to help improve the confidence level of our beloved Altos... and so far, "we got nuttin." We have tried positive criticism, yelling, one-on-one conversations, sectionals, and nothing seems to work. We cannot get these lovely ladies to sing!