By Sarah Burnett
As the 2020-2021 school year is entering the virtual second semester, new classes are starting for students. Some classes have had to do some major readjusting when it comes to an online curriculum; Especially for the choir classes.
Starting all the way back in March of 2020, the choir students were already struck with major disappointment when their trip to Disney World was cancelled because of the Pandemic. Not only was their most anticipated performance of the year cancelled, but Mrs. Geiger had to figure out how she was going to teach virtual choir classes. When students were previously taking choir classes in person, they were all able to sing in large groups, stand super close to each other, and practice all of the songs for the concert together. Choir students are now facing many being faced with many more challenges as their classes have shifted to being online. With classes being virtual, they cannot turn their mics on and sing together during classes because of the Google Meet lag. The students must stay muted the entire time they are singing, and Mrs. Geiger has to hope that everyone is singing correctly and is on the same page. As you probably can imagine, finding a quiet space to sing is quite difficult for some students. Kaitlyn Burnett, a senior in chamber choir and hawkapella, lives with three noisy siblings and struggles to find a quiet place to sing that won’t disrupt everyone else during class. “When Sarah is taking her classes in the Kitchen, Claire is taking her classes in the living room, and Ryan is taking his classes in his bedroom, it can be really challenging to find a quiet place to sing. I don’t want to bother anyone, but some of the singing activities we do in class can be really loud and distracting,” Kaitlyn says. Even though the choir student’s mics have to be mute for the majority of class, Mrs. Geiger still has virtual homework assignments where students must record their singing, in order to ensure that everyone stays on track and is ready to submit a video for their virtual performances.
While it may be a struggle to always find a quiet space to sing and practice with their mics off, the choir students have made the best out of their situation and had an produced an amazing performance during their first concert. In late December, there was a fine arts assembly where many choir, band, orchestra, and piano students were able to showcase some of the amazing skills they learned during their online classes. The performance took place via YouTube ChoirLive Stream, where there was a compilation of all of the videos fine arts students recorded of themselves. Thanks to the magic of technology, Kaitlyn and a few of her friends were able to edit together and produce videos that each individual choir student sent in, so it appeared as if the entire choir was singing at the same time. Not only did the choir sound amazing, but they were also able to make a cool video edit to keep their audience engaged.
Mrs. Geiger and the RHHS choir classes have done a phenomenal job of transitioning from in-person learning to virtual classes. Despite the struggle of finding a quiet place to sing and record themselves, the choir students have done an amazing job so far and have had amazing virtual performances.