Dear Ms. Chan,
I’ve heard about the proposal for the school to set up a student choir focusing on pop songs. As a former student choir member, I am quite concerned about this proposal. From my point of view, I don’t think it is a good idea to set up a choir focusing on pop songs.
The main reason is that I believe students cannot learn choral singing in the best way when they just focus on singing pop songs. Recently the pop songs are sung by solo singers or groups of just a few members. The songs are usually composed with unisonous melody. That means if a student choir is set up, students will just practice songs in unison. I think this will defeat the purpose of learning choral singing. Only by singing songs with parts can student learn choral singing effectively. Apart from singing their own melody, students have to listen to what students in other parts are singing and try to adjust their own voice to reach musical harmony among different parts. I do believe that classical songs and hymns can do better than pop songs to allow students to learn to cooperate with others.
Moreover pop songs focus too much on the background music, brushing the importance of human voice aside. Pop songs are performed with live band with guitar, bass, and drum set. People use the background music to create musical richness to attract the audience. Sometimes, the background music may even cover the singers’ voices. Choir is the place to learn and appreciate human natural voice. And the best way to create musical richness is to use human voices, but not musical instruments. I am worried that in the student choir focusing on pop music, students may focus less on the singing techniques and they may sing songs of poor quality.
Also, regarding the content of the songs, many pop songs do not have a positive and healthy content. Usually pop songs are about romance. They talk about having a relationship and also giving up a relationship easily. Some of them even encourage violence. Those songs are absolutely not appropriate for students, especially the junior form students who are like sponge absorbing all information they receive. Joining the choir, students have to learn the messages from the lyrics of the songs and to develop positive and healthy values. A choir focusing on pop songs may not be able to teach students in this way.
I understand that students nowadays love pop songs more than traditional and classical songs. The school choir may be worried that there will be fewer and fewer students who want to join the choir. I think the school choir can do something to attract students and improve the quality of the choir.
First of all, I think the school choir can practice a wider variety of songs. I find out that the school choir spends a lot of time practicing traditional hymns. This may be the reason why students have the misconception that the choir is boring. Apart from hymns, students can try other types of songs such as folk songs and musicals. The choir can perform different kinds of songs to other students in the assemblies and lunchtime. This can help other students understand that joining the school choir is actually fun and interesting.
Of course, the school cannot turn a deaf ear to the opinion of having a student choir sing pop songs. However instead of setting up a totally new choir, the existing choir can try to practice and perform songs in a modern way. For example, students can try to arrange the classical songs with pop or jazz styles. This can boost students’ creativity and also fulfil students’ wish of singing songs with pop style.
I hope that the school can consider my suggestions and opinions and the school choir can continue to give an enjoyable experience of choral singing to students.
Yours sincerely,
Pat Li
Pat Li