To think a secondary school choir rejecting an 11 year old based on their voice is horrible?

[tigerdrew]

Just had DD come in upset. It's quite random as it's the middle of the night and a weekend and we had a nice day today, told me she is still sad about how she is a bad singer and she doesn't want to see her music teacher as she is too embarrassed etc etc

DD tried out for the school choir which is done by audition so obviously she was aware there was some kind of judging involved and so was I but I do think rejecting a year 7 into something they are interested in trying is harsh, especially when it's hard enough for year 7s.

AIBU to think a school choir should just be for whoever is interested? When kids are all singing in a group they do sound the same anyway! Obviously maybe solos could be kept for the particularly talented but I'm honestly just a bit sad and even annoyed.

You CAN sing without joining the formal school choir. You can sing at home. In your room, shower, lounge, car, backyard etc. It's not like the only option is school choir or never open your mouth to sing. School choirs, at least where I am, enter Eisteddfods. It is a formal actual school choir, not a lunch time school hobby which you seem to think it should be. OP's daughter can sing at home, it's not like she'll never be able to sing anywhere ever in her entire life!

It possible for every child to have an opportunity to sing for pleasure and yet still need to have auditions for the main choir. In fact, I would say that the more opportunities a school gives for young people to sing for pleasure, the more likely it is that the school choirs will be oversubscribed.

In some schools scraping together a dozen kids across the whole school who want to sing in a choir is a challenge. In others there are multiple choirs with the main choir being hugely oversubscribed.

At our carol concert there are several choirs every year. The main choir, a gospel choir, usually at least a couple of smaller choirs from different age groups and then a “Christmas choir” that gets put together in the autumn term to encourage kids who don’t want to commit to a choir long-term to have a go and sing. Some of those then go on to join one of the other choirs.

All year groups have hymn practice regularly in assembly and during masses all students sing. It’s competitive because there is a culture of singing for pleasure.

Exactly this.

@GingerCoi You have said what I was thinking far better than I could have-and in a much nicer way!

Well apparently there are plenty of parents who fork out for singing lessons for their kids. Why couldn't there be plenty of parents who pay a bit for a non-selective choir?

Agreed it's about kids having an opportunity to do something beneficial even if they don't have star quality. Like kids should learn to cook even if they're not cut out to run a restaurant or be a celeb chef or whatever. Because it's good for you and brings joy. It's sad when everything is made into a competition.

I don't see anything wrong with kids competing in some areas, but don't think singing should be one that's solely competitive.

People keep saying this but it simply isn’t true. Nobody can learn to be “just as good”. Most people can improve, but lessons wont magically make them good singers. There was a programme on Sky Arts a few years back called Anyone Can Sing where poor singers were intensively mentored by world class vocal coaches with the premise as the title.

At the end, the majority were still poor singers, painfully so in a couple of cases.

That said, it’s a shame that creative pursuits aren’t treated the same as sports in schools, where competitive teams are provided separately to open lessons.

The clue is in the word audition. Not everyone will be successful, especially if numbers are limited:
"An audition is a short performance given by an actor, dancer, or musician so that a director or conductor can decide if they are good enough to be in a play, film, or orchestra"

What? Of course you tell her if she's not up to it! If she chooses to go on and audition anyway that's up to her but she needs to know if she's BAD. You can flower it up to break the news gently, but she needs to know. This is how you get AWFUL singers on XFactor and BGT, who are oblivious to the fact, who then get told so publicly. That famous one where the parents stomped onstage and told Simon Cowell off. Its THEIR fault their Daughter ended up humiliating herself on National TV, because they were either so deluded they couldn't see their little darling was bad, or knew full well like you do but shyed away from being the one to break the news.

If she's actually BAD who would you rather tell her? You, or a teacher who'll tell her without sympathy, a hug, and possibly in front of others?

Kindness. What a great post.

And she can still be a bad singer without being completely out of time! They're looking for GOOD singers in a choir, not bad, and not even average.

The girls that got rejected would have had their confidence knocked and perhaps not kept trying.

That is what OP is saying.
If they are rejected then does it knock their confidence so much that they don’t want to do it anymore.
But that's for the parents to manage. We set the culture in our homes. Our children look to us to learn how to react to situations.

If we are open with them that everyone has skills and talents, that sometimes you'll make the team/get the audition and others you won't, they'll accept that and know we are with them through the highs and the disappointment. If we are full of praise and support for their efforts and celebrate their achievements, then we can be kind and loving in our guidance in the areas they're not strong at. If when they're disappointed we're there to be supportive, and we help them establish what they can do next, that's what they'll learn. They're more likely to work on the area they wish to improve, or decide they've got talents in other areas, or accept someone else was better this time and it might be their time next time.

If we fail to teach them that disappointment is part of life, if we instill in them the idea that every gets a prize, everyone should make the team, they are entitled to a place after every audition and then when they're disappointed we seek to blame others, blame the coaches, complain to the school, then at best we are failing help them build resilience in a safe and loving way, and at worst we're setting them with a sense of entitlement and an inability to appraise their strengths and weaknesses.

Ah, but is she completely out of tune?
Or maybe her audition went wrong - like she started singing on the wrong note and ended up sining in a different key to the accompanying music, even if she was in tune with herself.

Op
I'm shocked that you're surprised that someone would advise their child that there not particularly good at something . At 11 you should absolutely be able to have an honest conversation with her about her abilities in what ever she does.
Her peers won't be long in telling her the truth and it's far better coming from you.

Fundamentally, life is a competition. That means there'll be "winners" and "losers". The sooner children realise that, the less they're set up for disappointment. Primary schools are terrible with their mantra of "you can be want you want to be", and the transition to secondary is usually where the child realises that they've been led up the garden path.

When it comes to boyfriends, the OP's DD will almost certainly end up being dumped for someone else with longer hair, bigger boobs, or whatever, or the lad they fancy won't ask them out. Boys and girls are competing for eachother.

When it comes to GCSEs and A levels, the marking/grade boundaries is set up deliberately make x% of people get 9s/A*s and y% of people "failing" by getting the lower grades. So kids are competing against eachother to get the best grades they can.

When it comes to Uni, it's a competition for a fixed number of places - based on A level grades (GCSEs to an extent), partly hobbies & interests, partly the quality of their personal statement.

Same with jobs, some will get the top jobs, others won't, all based on competition. Same with promotions. Same if your job involves selling things, applying for grants, etc - you're competing against other firms.

Looking further, buying or renting a house is also a competition, people are competing with eachother to get the house they want in terms of how much they offer, their credit rating, etc etc.

The sooner that children realise life is a competition, the better.

DS is 10 and loves his sports, but it's pretty brutal out there. He trains with a football team and is rarely selected for matches which increases the cycle of falling behind because he has less experience. He keeps training because he loves it and there will be other opportunities.
He also does parkrun, and that comes with its own life lessons. Focus on your time and your pbs; that's objective. Don't focus on your position, that's relative to who else turned up that day. Do it because you love it, and the pbs and placings are a lovely bonus when they fall into place.

11 is not too young to accept that you're not the right fit for anything you want to do. If you love it, there are other opportunities to get involved.

Most hurtful is struggling on the periphery, more than an outright initial rejection. Sometimes rejection is because of objectively not reaching a standard. Sometimes it's bad luck that there's just more people willing to go for it than the capacity to accommodate it, and the margins are far tighter.

A school has limited resources to support choirs and it's not unreasonable for them to audition and select the pupils that meet a standard that they can manage.
At school, some years I got into school plays, some years I didn't. The years I didn't, I worked backstage because I enjoyed the involvement. Sometimes being rejected can make you look sideways for related opportunities.

Because parents don't pay for things like this I'm afraid.

The reality is that a school running and auditioned choir is not "making everything a competition" it is about running a music group that is attempting to achieve something different and equally valid to a non-auditioned ensemble. To make music more inclusive at the highest levels we actually need more state schools focussing on supporting musical excellence, not less. This idea that music in schools is just a general enrichment activity rather than something that someone can genuinely have talent in and seek a career in is a major problem for representation in the arts.

No of course you don't tell her she's bad. The op doesn't even think that if you read her posts.

Definitely encourage her to go for it, perhaps prepare her for the idea that not everyone is successful. As a parent your job is to encourage her not to crush her completely at the tender age of 11.

Before my very first sports day at primary school, my mother gently made me aware of the fact that I was and am totally non-sporty and that I was not going to do very well in the races. She told me that I was very lucky because I found reading, spelling and maths easy and other children did not so that this was their chance to shine. This seemed eminently fair and sensible to me at five or six and I certainly was not upset. I find it a little disturbing that eleven year olds have not accepted this fact yet (whatever the weakness may be). Even in the weakest areas we can still practise in order to improve but the fact is that someone who is talented in a particular area and also works at it will always be better than others. I have a teenage piano pupil who has just been accepted as a junior scholar at one of the most prestigious music colleges in the country. Each year, l put on a concert in which all my pupils participate in front of an audience of family and friends. It is fully inclusive so that the even the youngest beginner plays a little piece. As they become more advanced, the pieces become longer and more difficult and everyone plays to the best of their ability. Everyone is pleased for everyone else and extremely encouraging. They are also vocal about how much improvement there has been in the past year. However, everyone also knows that the pupil on his way to music college is outstanding and he plays a bit more than everyone else. I have also provided extra opportunities for him to perform. Having been at a music college myself, though, I know that the training will take no prisoners and I have already warned him that he will be a little fish in a big pool, rather than a big fish in a little pool as he is at the moment. It is a very good lesson to learn.

See if there's a youth community choir outside of school that she could join? They usually don't audition.

There are many opportunities at school to enjoy a skill or hobby, but some involve a level that not everyone can achieve. Sports teams will select the best 11, choirs want the singers who have the best voices, the debating team is for the best speakers. Yes, it is hard for those who enjoy singing or football or speaking to not get selected, but this is life. Children understand their place in the pecking order, they know if they're good at sports or chess etc. A good school will provide opportunities for as many as possible, but not everyone can be in the team.

A lot of private schools insist on all kids learning how to sing and joining the school choir (there were seperate choirs for advanced competitions depending on requirements that students were pooled into). The understanding was that everyone and anyone can learn how to sing in a basic way barring disability & I think that reasoning is sound. I have yet to hear a bad singer at DD’s school.

This is why people end up singing on Britain's got talent and get laughed at and publicly shamed.

Performing as a vocal ensemble requires everyone to be able to hit the notes. You wouldn't expect a kid who got a trumpet for Christmas and can't actually play it to be allowed to join a brass ensemble alongside players who have been playing for four or five years.

Get your child private voice lessons if you want someone to put in the time and effort it would take to help him or her improve. However, there's not much you can do about a wooden ear, sadly.

We can't all be good everything OP. You would expect a football team to take on someone who was no good at football, equally someone who is no good at singing doesn't need to be in a choir. Your daughter is and will be good at something. People need to deal with disappointments sometimes. Our children get told throughout their lives that they are amazing at everything and go throughout it thinking that should be able to join every club going.
My son is a good football player, his friend is not. Friend discovers a talent for skating and is now on a roller hockey team, my son didn't get selected because its not something he is good at. My son was disappointed but that's just life. Bolster your daughter up and encourage the many other things she's good at.

It was wrong for only the choir to get trips like that when the five girls who didn't sing could easily have been included on the trips too. I doubt they were singing at the ice rink.

Gareth Malone did tell some of the kids they weren't good enough for the trip to China.