In my first experience in a choir in high school, my director placed me in the alto section. I sang with my best friend as an alto for three years and became extremely comfortable in that register. I settled on the fact that my voice was strongest and clearest in the lower range, and I became extremely confident in that fact. When I came to college, I knew that I wanted to continue being in choir, so I signed up for an audition for the alto section coming into my freshman year. It took Dr. Joy Sherman (or more commonly known in the community as Doc) all of five minutes in my audition to remove everything I thought I knew about my voice and place me as a soprano two. I had to learn to adapt to the different register and make a switch from my chest to the higher point of my voice. Over the year, I was able to learn A LOT from Doc and learned to develop my strength in this other section. It was a good thing too, because when Dr. Conley Holcom (commonly known as Dr. C) took over for Doc the following year, she promptly decided that my voice was best fit for soprano one. Over the course of three seemingly short years, I had gone from an alto (on occasion tenor depending on the piece) to a soprano one. This was a difficult transition to go through at times, and since then I have talked to that friend I sang with in high school about my “identity crisis” that I had experienced with my voice. However, despite the tremendous amount of voice cracks and extended vocal training, I am beyond thankful for the process. I still love singing as an alto and often find myself singing in that range when I sing more casually, but I also love the growth that my voice has gone through in becoming a soprano. It was so important for me to be open minded with these two directors as they inevitably did know best, and they helped my grow along the way. I am so thankful for the experience of singing in both sections.
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