Haslett HS Select Women's Choir - Observation #1

This past Tuesday, I went to Haslett High School to observe the Select Women's Choir, under the direction of Samara Valla. This is a small group of about 24 women that meets twice a week for an hour after school. Normally, this group does not have freshmen, but Ms. Valla told me that she had 13 graduates from the choir last year, so there are 6 freshmen this year. All members are required to participate in one of the choirs during the school day in order to audition for Select Women's Choir.

In terms of demographics, the choir is almost all Caucasian. I noticed one Asian girl and one Indian girl, but the rest were white. Haslett is a wealthier district and, just on a cursory look, I would say that the women in the choir are predominantly middle class/upper middle class. This probably matches the demographics of the high school and district as a whole.

The class is very relaxed with each other and Ms. Valla. Students were joking with her as they walked in and chatting amongst themselves while they got set up and ready to sing. Ms. Valla began the rehearsal by starting warmups. Most of the students started singing the warmups right away, but a couple were talking or joking through them or part of them.

When Ms. Valla went to start rehearsal, there was a little lag as her accompanist came out and the students got their music out. This led to a lot of talking, to which Ms. Valla responded with "Shhh shh shh shhh shhh" (shushing in rhythm) and the choir echoed.

Once the rehearsal started, it was clear that this was an advanced group. The focus honed in, the talking stopped. Everyone was focused on singing and watching. When Ms. Valla cut, I heard a couple students talking - but about the music. I heard someone say "That sounded flat." Someone else was talking with their neighbor trying to figure out a difficult interval jump. It was clear, that even though this was after school and made for a longer school day, that these students were motivated and wanted to be there. The group was already singing through an entire song with text and with most of the right notes - it was only their second rehearsal on the work. The song was called "Dance on My Heart" by Allen Koepke. They are also working on "Duo Serapham Clamabant" by Victoria.

This dynamic was very different when Jeremiah, Ms. Valla's student teacher, addressed the group later in the rehearsal with potential suggestions on the group's sound. About half the group was attentive to him - I believe the upper class students primarily who had been in the group previously. The younger students, however, started talking during his suggestions. Neither Jeremiah, nor Ms. Valla, addressed this. It was very clear that the biggest behavioral issue with the group was talking. I am sure part of this is because the group meets after school, but I'm sure some of it also has to deal with younger students who are new to the group not following the leadership of the older students.

The one thing I noticed about Ms. Valla is that she talks a lot through the rehearsal. She sung with the group a couple times when working with individual sections, but most of her instructions were verbal only. She does allow for input from the group, asking them about phrasing preferences or tempo changes, which I thought was great. She is also good about giving sections things to do when she is working with a different section. When I was there, she had sections that weren't singing work on text study, identifying the most important and second most important word of each phrase. She then opened the class up to a discussion about those selections so that the group could come to an agreement about where to put stress, which I thought was really cool.

I am very excited to be working with this group because it is clear that they are capable of doing some really great things in a very short amount of time. I know this is not a realistic choir for a normal school day, but I think it will be very cool to see what this group can do and how musical a high school group can be.