I’ve never directed a real choir class before. I’ve worked with small groups of kids and teens in playing and singing music for Mass, but Masses are not performances. It’s different. However, one of the things about being a volunteer is that even if you don’t know anything about what you are trying to accomplish, you are still the resident expert on that subject. Google comes in handy a lot here.
Things I have googled:
How to hip hop dance
What is an adjective?
How to make homemade glue
How to pronounce English words
Tips for new choir directors
Thank you google.
So at the start of the new school year, I have suddenly found myself the new choir director of the new choir at my school. It was my idea anyway so it’s not like I was dreading this. The principle gave me a list of students who had signed up to be in my class. It was 12 kids. Perfect. Enough kids to sing as a choir but small enough to manageably work with them.
And then the day of my first class came. As I am directing kids to set up chairs, the principal walks in with a group of kids. “You have a few additional kids who have signed up,” She tell me and motions them inside. Great! I count all the kids in the room. Thirty-one kids. Wait…thirty-one?!
Just a typical day in action...
My dreams of being the best, most amazing kids choir director disintegrated the first day of class. The kid up in front who can apparently only shout every song, the five boys in back who are not listening and instead crawling under the table, the two girls who giggle when I try to lead a singing warm-up, they all remind that I am working with kids, not professional singers.
This is going to be a journey.
The next day, a little girl asks me if we are going to have singing class again. It’s only once a week I tell her. “Next week na lang.” But she asks me the next day again just to be sure. And her friend also wants to be sure that there hasn’t been any singing meetings that she’s missed. “Don’t worry,” I assure them. You won’t miss out.
The next week I made 32 copies of the song we’re going to sing and handed them out. And some kids didn’t get a copy. I couldn’t quite figure that one out until I realized we had a few new additions.
This is going to be a good journey.
Yours truly,
a girl who dreams
