Chorus Contest v2.0

AKA: Practice Makes Perfect

It's that time of the year again - the Chorus Contest! You may or may not remember it from last year, so here's the short version: each of the homerooms compete against the other homerooms in their grade in a singing contest. They sing two songs - one that the entire grade sings, one that each homeroom picks for itself. Each homeroom picks a student to conduct and a student to play the piano accompaniment; the competition completely relies on the students. The teachers judge each performance and the winners are announced at the end of the competition.

So ... this glorious event happened yesterday.

This year, as far as the official part of the contest is concerned, wasn't very different from last year. The conductors were a little more reserved in their conducting, which was sad - I rather enjoyed the flamboyant Maestros from last year. The performances were also a little disappointing as far as ability was concerned - many of the pieces seemed unbalanced, in that the boys were not informed that their voices would carry much more easily than the girls', making the bass-lines much too prominent.
Or maybe I'm just more critical this year than I was last year; who knows!

Outside of the official competition, however, there was much more unofficial activity. There was a handbell performance, a jazz band performance, a percussion band performance, an a cappella performance, a gymnastics routine, a rock band performance which featured the Vice Principal on rhythm guitar, a skit, a piano duet featuring a third year student (9th grader) and a teacher wearing a student uniform, a PTA chorus rendition of Angela Aki's "Letter," a dance done by the extracurricular music class, and a brass band performance of two popular songs which involved teachers dancing. Pretty chock full of stuff!

I was involved in the a cappella performance (3 people, including myself, singing "Amazing Grace" - I had the melody, which was fun) and the teacher's dance for the brass band (I was dancing to the Ponyo theme song). It was nice to be selected for things and to be included in this way.

However...

We never had a dress rehearsal. The a cappella group never practiced the whole song together. The Ponyo dance didn't ever practice, and only one person dancing knew what the order for the dance was. Other performances, too, reflected a general lack of practice; only the PTA seemed to be on top of their game.

The kids had fun, which was the important part; that being said, the whole thing, as a performance, was very sloppy. Were it just a performance for the students, I wouldn't mind, but here were many relatives and other visitors who had come to watch. I hated that what they saw reflected so poorly, in general, on our school. Still, lack of preparation (and my severe anal-retentive streak) aside, it was a fun occasion.

Of all of the songs, I took only one video, and it happened to be my favorite performance and what won first place for the 3rd year homeroom that performed it. I think I will try putting it up on YouTube so y'all can get a feel for what the students do; more on this in the near future. :)