Show choir vs. choir(472)

What Passion Cannot Music Raise and Quell? This quote is the opening line from a song we are learning in my varsity concert choir. Although we are just learning that song now my director has been telling us this particular quote before we have gone on for show choir competitions for weeks now. That started me thinking about all the things we do in show choir to make the audience feel a certain type of emotion. We don’t just use music even though that is a large part of it. We also use facials and movements and we create stories with partners and friends.

But in normal choir, you don’t have the ability to do that. You must do it all with music. Sure sometimes directors give you arm choreography, lovingly called “choralography,” or say “look happy during this piece,” or “its talking about love why do you guys look like your pooping!” but they can not give you a whole dance and say “learn it, and it has to be perfect.” Because that is not was choir is. That is not to say, though, that you are not performing for an audience. Because you are.

So I will be addressing just some differences and similarities from choir and show choir in this blog. Let’s start with something that doesn’t have to do with music; how the performers look. In show choir you are told how to do your make up, how to do your hair, what to wear, and what to wear underneath that. If everything isn’t uniform in show choir you get points taken off, and as any show choir person will tell you, every point matters. In choir it’s a bit different though, you are not told what to do with your make up or hair, but at my school you are told what to wear. (Long green dresses. Perfect for singing in, not so great for dancing.)

Another difference is that in show choir you are judged, and placed, and critiqued. And after all that you go get your big trophy to present proudly saying “look world were number one!” In choir there are no trophies, no judge, no being critiqued, and you don’t get placed against other groups. You simply go and give the best show you can give, so you can say that you did the best you did. Last year my director was explaining that there are two type of competition; internal and external. I believe that show choir is mostly about external competition. How you rank against other groups? Who got the bigger score and all that. And choir is internal, did I hit that note correctly? Did I breathe where I was supposed to?

There are tons and tons of differences between choir and show choir, I just hit on two main ones.