“It’s Like a Whole Bunch of Me!”

Abstract

The purpose of this ethnographic study was to explore the perceived values and benefits associated with participation in a highly successful community-based girls’ choral ensemble. The benefits of membership in the Seattle Girls’ Choir organization were explored, with particular attention to the expressed values and observed behaviors of choristers. Regular choir rehearsals, musicianship classes, festival and summer camp experiences, concert performances, faculty, staff and board meetings, and other community events were documented carefully and examined during a yearlong period of fieldwork. Semistructured interviews with choristers, faculty members, parents, and staff members were used to elicit participant perspectives on the girls’ choir experience and the perceived values and benefits of participation. Emergent themes included music, personal, social, and external benefits, which were examined in an effort to augment an ever-growing understanding of modern music-making and the value of music engagement in the lives of participants.

“We sing to touch hearts”: Choral musical culture in Pretoria East, South Africa

“…Fifth grader and JCC singer Henry asserted, “It relieves my day every day. I come here and I don’t have to worry about homework.” This finding corresponds with several previous studies that linked choir participation and escape or stress relief (Adderly, Kennedy, & Berz, 2003; Bartolome, 2013a; Clift & Hancox, 2001; Judd & Pooley, 2014).…”

“…Choir members valued a place in which they could be themselves and interact with likeminded singers. This notion of choir as a place of belonging was also seen in previous studies of the value of choral participation (Bartolome, 2013a; Judd & Pooley, 2014; Parker, 2011).…”

“…This study demonstrated the multi-dimensional nature of the experience of choir singing for the first time and suggested benefits beyond those most obviously related to the development of musical skills and understandings. Since that time, scholars have confirmed a wide range of perceived musical, emotional, social, and personal benefits attributed to participation in children’s and youth choirs in both school (Adderly, Kennedy, & Berz, 2003; Chorus America, 2009; Kennedy, 2002; Rohwer & Rohwer, 2009) and community (Bartolome, 2013a; Chorus America, 2009) contexts.…”

Building Identity in Collegiate Midlevel Choral Ensembles

“…These divisions can potentially create hierarchies between whole ensembles (Wilson, 2012). Hierarchy can positively divide students into ensembles that provide more students with performance success (Davis, 1998) and offer motivation for continued hard work (Bartolome, 2013). However, this same division has the potential to define a choral paradigm in which students feel that they can only identify with a music ensemble if they participate in the self-perceived best group and that the purpose of all other ensembles consists only of preparing students to move up to the next level (Bartel, 2004; Thompson & Campbell, 2010).…”

A Grounded Theory of Adolescent High School Women’s Choir Singers’ Process of Social Identity Development

“…Women's choirs abound in public middle schools, high schools, universities, allstate offerings, and national music conventions (Spurgeon, 2012a), and women choral singers may outnumber men as many as three to one (O'Toole, 1998). Though women's choral singing has received greater attention in the past decade (Spurgeon, 2012a), few choral methods texts describe the psychological experiences of adolescent women (Gackle, 2011), and only a few research studies focus on adolescent women singers' experiences, including Bartolome (2013), Gackle (1991Gackle ( , 2006, Sweet (2015), and Wilson (2012). Furthermore, there is little extant research focused on public high school women's choirs, highlighting a perceivable gap in our profession's understanding.…”