Rating Choir Room Posters

By Siona Kirschner

As a former choir kid, I have a rich history of staring at the posters in the choir room in an attempt to look casual while avoiding That One SopranoTM. Unfortunately, this had an inconsistent success rate in terms of my goal, but a very consistent success rate in terms of leaving me with a feeling of unease.

1. “Shoot For The Moon. Even if You Miss, You’ll Land Among The Stars.”: 0/10While I understand that from an objective standpoint, this poster is fairly banal and unobjectionable, I need you to understand that at age 13, I was infuriated by it. The stars are way further away than the moon, and in my eyes this inaccuracy was unforgivable.

2. Any Music Pun Poster: 12/10Duh.

3. The “Choir is Like A Family” One: -294/10For those of you that are untraumatized - I mean unfamiliar - this poster says something along the lines of how we all hate each other and want to rip our choirmates’ hair from their skulls and wish death upon those in the group who get solos instead of us, but it’s because we’re just like a family. Beyond being misguided, this poster also dangerously enabled the toxic environment that was middle school choir. In the teary end-of-year speeches (and I do mean speeches) by the members with the most troublesome behavior, this poster was referenced in their excuses about their egregious attitudes. I think not.

4. “Performance, Musicianship, Teamwork”: 4/10This poster would be a solid seven, if my teacher hadn’t repeatedly referred to “PMT” like it was the Ten Commandments. Nothing has ever been that serious.

5. The Rainbow Solfege Posters: 10/10Here for the (admittedly unintentional) LGBTQ+ pride.

“Practice Makes Permanent”: 2/10

This is an instance where I personally would much rather stick with the classics. Call me willfully ignorant, but I honestly don’t think either saying has particularly much wisdom, so I’ll take the less threatening one.