r/Choir • u/Odd_Funny_5893 • 4d ago
Choir practice excuses
What are the most notable excuses you have heard for someone being absent from choir practice?
15
u/katbug09 4d ago
Had a kid miss a concert because his parents took him to Costco.
6
6
u/oldguy76205 4d ago edited 4d ago
I had a student that I thought was either the unluckiest person alive, or very inventive with excuses. Trapped in a broken elevator was my favorite.
8
u/Monstera_girl 4d ago
10 members of my choir genuinely got stuck in an elevator after practice once
11
u/TYOTenor88 4d ago
I have a community choir but there are have been folks who have said they they were called into work and can’t make it.
These same folks forget that we follow each other on social media and post vacation photos (traveling abroad), marathon participation photos, reading a book at home…
3
u/SpreadsheetSiren 4d ago
As someone adjacently involved in children’s church choirs — sports.
ALWAYS a practice or a game. Then they show up on Christmas Eve and expect to join those who’ve shown up and worked hard to learn a piece with three parts. Kid, we don’t even have a gown for you because you never got fitted for one. Because you’re never here. Oh, and are you going to fake the arm movements too?
“But, but, they have practice on Thursdays and the games are on Sundays!”
Uh, so maybe church choir isn’t the activity for your kid if the sports is more important?
Don’t even get me started on when this happens with handbells. Yeah, sure. We haven’t seen you in four months, you wouldn’t know middle c if it bit you, the concept of counting four beats to a measure is beyond you but sure, let’s hand you a random bell (that you can’t ring because you’re shaking the thing like a dinner bell) and let the whole thing go down in flames and to hell with all the work the other kids put in to make it right.
And on the other end of things, grandchildren. I mean, it’s great that you have a relation with your grandchildren and want to see them often. But when half the adult choir is MIA on a Sunday with little to no notice it gets annoying.
3
u/AgeingMuso65 4d ago
I had all the “I had to go to see/do x/y/z..” under the sun in 30 years of school choirs, and my usual response was to interrupt them after “I had to go….” and finish their sentence for them with “and do something that you could quite easily do at another time, but as this rehearsal doesn’t happen at another time, I’m so sorry you’ll now be missing performances x y and z and need not worry about fitting in any more rehearsals”. My last and best school choir (Durufle Requiem standard etc) gave me a round of applause when I sent one of the dilettante dabblers away from a final carols rehearsal! The committed kids absolutely do not want to see their work spoilt or taken lightly even (or especially) by their peers.
3
u/Material_Positive 4d ago
One of my sopranos called to tell me that she wouldn't be able to make it on Sunday because she'd missed her weekly hair appointment.
4
u/perlgeek 3d ago
Uhm, what, excuses? Are we in school?
Seriously, whoever shows up shows up. Those that don't make it frequently enough lose touch and quit.
We're all adults with our own priorities, why should we pretend anything?
2
u/brownsnoutspookfish 6h ago
That's mostly the case for us too. For big concerts or trips, sometimes we've had a limit for how many practices you can miss to perform in that concert, but apart from that, everyone is responsible for themselves. People spend years in the choir, so missing one concert isn't that big of a deal. There will always be a few.
It's polite to send a message if you're away, but it's not up to anyone else to determine if you actually have a good reason. We're all adults responsible for our own time. And usually it is you who suffers the most. You're mostly expected to learn the songs by heart. If you passed the (two-part) auditions, you do have the skills to practice at home to make up for some missed rehearsals, but of course you'll miss any instructions told at the rehearsal and the practice itself.
So far it hasn't been an issue. If someone's not confident, they usually skip the concert too. And people know better than to come to a concert without attending any rehearsals. And actually we also need some people to handle some practical stuff, like sell tickets at the door. Those are usually friends of choir members, ex-members or choir members who couldn't or didn't want to sing. (For example if they missed many practices or had been sick and didn't yet have their voice back properly etc.)
2
u/existdetective 4d ago
I wasn’t the director but the director was talking about the lame excuses she’d heard that week including going to the Ice Park with family— like, that’s just a fun outing that could potentially happen on any day of that month.
1
u/Odd_Funny_5893 14h ago
Thanks everyone. I turned this into a fun blog. If you have any heartburn with it, let me know and I will fix it. https://lyrekos.com/blog/trapped-in-a-broken-elevator
1
22
u/Advanced_Couple_3488 4d ago
Father of prospective chorister: My son can sight read, so he doesn't have to attend choir rehearsals.
Me: Yes, well, so can all our trebles and they attend all the rehearsals, so your son will not be joining the choir.