PHS Choir Students Adjust to New In-Person Class Style

Class is back in session for Choir students at Pioneer, and they couldn’t be more excited to be together in person. But with a new way of doing things to comply with Covid guidelines, comes a new set of challenges.

We spoke to Ms. Mannion, the Choir teacher at Pioneer, who explained some of these challenges from her perspective as a teacher.

When asked about the difference between Choir class now vs pre-Pandemic, she answered, “Well, the first, easiest answer is: we’re wearing masks while we’re singing, which of course is challenging because it's hard to hear each other, it's hard for me to hear the students, and it's hard to breathe and sing when you have a mask on.

“At the beginning of the year, we had to rehearse outside,” she told us. “And that was challenging because we were trying to find shady spots, and it was either sunny or noisy, or too smoky...You know, just problematic.”

Rehearsals happened outside of the Choir room the first couple weeks of school, but with this came a variety of issues, mainly the sweltering heat and that there weren’t enough shady spots for everyone. They decided to move to the other side of the building, but quickly realized that P.E. students would be jogging by at a steady rate, proving to be too distracting whilst learning new music.

Fortunately, the Choir has been given permission to practice in the theatre, which gives them more room to spread out, “although it still is kind of challenging because the seats aren’t very good for singing, and...it’s hard to hear in there as well. But, it's a whole lot better than singing outside” (Mannion).

Finding peace and harmonies in the theatre, Choir is starting to feel more normal. However, another issue arises: the amount of uncertainties this year. “We think we’re going to be singing outside for our first concert, but there’s uncertainty about where the other concerts will be because in December it's probably going to be too cold to be outside, but if they won’t let us sing inside...there’s just a lot of uncertainty right now.”

She also explained how it has been hard to get to know her new students: “I think getting to know students with masks on…[in] my beginning Choir, I only knew a handful of them, so getting to know them when I can only see [above the mask]...that’s kind of challenging.”

Thankfully, the Pandemic has only discouraged a few students who would normally have signed up for Choir. According to Ms. Mannion, “It was actually not as bad as I thought it would be. Usually I have in my Choir/Concert Choir closer to 23 or 26 [students], and right now we have 18.”

Although the Pandemic may have been a terrible experience, “there [are] ways the Pandemic has been good, but none of them are directly related to Choir. The fact that singing was so impacted by not being able to sing at all...and when we were in distance learning, trying to do singing activities over the Internet...we couldn’t really hear each other and sing together.”

There are many qualities that make up a Choir student, but what are the ones specifically needed for Choir: Pandemic Edition? “Being very flexible, and willing to just kind of roll with all the changes,” Ms. Mannion answers. “All of the kids in both my choirs have been [really great] so far...even when we’re trying to move to all these different places [to rehearse] and everyone’s had a really good attitude, so you definitely have to have a good attitude.”

Lastly, we asked Ms. Mannion if she had any advice for aspiring Choir students. After a little bit of thought, she replies, “I would say anybody who loves to sing, and wants to be able to sing better, and gain confidence, Choir is the place to be. A lot of times students think they already have to have a really great voice to be in Choir, and so then some students don’t join. But this is where you learn to use your voice and you don’t have to sing by yourself - unless you want to - so it's a great way to just build community with other people who like to sing.”

The first choir concert is scheduled for October 21st, outside in the amphitheater.