After being in choir for seven years and being in the high school spring show for four of those, I’ve finally finished with my choir experience. It’s a little strange, even though choir was never a consuming passion in my life, to think that something that has become integrated in my everyday life is suddenly gone.

I’ve never particularly enjoyed singing. I’m not one of those individuals who secretly love to sing and are hiding a fabulous voice because they’re too shy to share their talent with the world. Any vocal skill I’ve built up has been drilled into me since sixth grade and I’ve never had a moment where I just wanted to break free and sing with my heart or anything cliche like that. If anything, being the perfectionist that I am and not fully understanding the inconsistent, untrustworthy thing that is my voice, trying to sing and sing right stressed me out.

That being said, I loved choir and if given the chance to go back and do it over again I wouldn’t change my decision. It gave me the experience to know how to read choral types of music and how to sing, a skill I can easily use throughout my life. My experience in choir gave me the confidence I needed to develop my performance skills and hold it together in front of a crowd. It gave me a greater appreciation for vocalists and my own talent as a singer. It exposed me to a wide variety of music, from classical to spirituals to modern pop. Through the All State auditions process, it gave me the experience to perform and compete under pressure without allowing my nerves to get the better of me. It provided me with deep and meaningful relationships and role models I wouldn’t have had otherwise. It gave me the opportunity to travel to San Antonio and Kansas City in front of conventions of revered vocal performers and directors as a member of the best choir in several states. It gave me the opportunity to perform one of the most famous operatic pieces in existence in the midst of a 300 person choir with a full orchestra and acclaimed director Peter Bay. It taught me the nature of disappointment, the need for self improvement rather than comparing my skills to others, and opened my eyes to the staggering amount of talent that overflows the planet. It taught me to be not only a better musician, but a better person, and I even if I forget how exactly to lift my soft palate or the order of the solfege syllables, I will always remember the life lessons choir has taught me.