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This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Murray State chapter.

If you’ve seen the show Glee, you know the show portrays show choir in a ridiculous manner. Anyone who’s ever been in a show choir knows that it is not actually like that at all. I took it upon myself to re-watch the show in high school to compare it and guys…there is so much more to it.

1. Drama

The drama is REAL, people. It happens all the time whether you see it or not. If you’re in an all-girl group or a co-ed group, it happens. Being in an all-girl group for my four years in show choir and being on the student board, I knew it all. Girls are girls, so of course, there were some bickering and “unfair” situations going on. I never witnessed full-on fistfights or saw girls scream at each other, but there was always stuff going on behind the scenes. 

2. Breaking Out Into Song

We did not break out in song as disappointing as that may be. The only person who would occasionally break out into song was my director, who assigned us what he wanted to hear. He seemed to know every song on the piano whether he knew the words or not. We would sometimes sing along with him too or call out the name of the song he was singing. It may sound boring and though we didn’t sing randomly, it was still a ton of fun.

3. Learning the Dances

It took a lot of time and a lot of practice to learn a dance. The student dance captains put a lot of time and effort into creating dances. When it came to competition material, we started learning the dances months before we even started to compete. We would have up to nine-hour rehearsals and weekend rehearsals. There were times that I was at school from 7:30 am for classes until 9:30 or even 10 at night. Some dance moves would take up to thirty minutes to learn if they were hard enough. 

4. Choreographers are a Necessity

Students can’t come up with the dances all of the time. There are Fall, Christmas, Winter and Spring concerts and the dance captains can’t be expected to come up with all of it. The director can’t be the choreographer either if you think about it. They have so much to do already just being the director, imagine having to choreograph shows too! It’s a lot of work to choreograph a competition show, which is up to five songs. Directors can’t do it all alone! 

5. It’s Competitive

As it is shown in the show, it’s competitive. There are state competitions and regional competitions, they are crazy competitive. Groups come out for blood and they will do anything they can to win. Some states are more competitive than others and some competitive states include Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, and Iowa. You have gone through blood, sweat, and tears to get to that competition and you want to win! If you don’t win, you work just as hard at rehearsals and try again at the next competition. You use that loss as motivation to push forward and kick butt. 

 

Show choir is fun and will be something that will have forever changed my life as it did to the people in Glee. My director, like Mr. Schue, impacted my life and is an amazing person. He, like Shue, cared a lot about his students and did anything he could to help you. There were things I loved, but there was a fair share of things that I wish would have been different while I was in the group. Even though there were some times that I wanted to quit, I pushed through and I’m so glad that I did. I’ve made life long friendships that I will forever cherish and I will for sure be making trips back home to watch their performances. If you’re still in high school and your school has a glee club, I absolutely recommend doing it. It will, without a doubt, change your life. 

Grace is a freshman at Murray State and is from Newburgh, Indiana. She is majoring in psychology and minoring in cognitive science. Grace loves to mess around with make-up and is obsessed with skincare. You can find Grace on twitter and Instagram at @graaciexx!
Callie Smith is a senior public relations major with nonprofit leadership studies and theatre minors at Murray State University. She is a lover of Jesus, an avid YA reader and a listener of Broadway records. In her spare time, she loves to watch The Umbrella Academy, Arrested Development, Veep and The X-Files. She loves to bake, perform, read and spend all the time she can with her friends. Callie's plans include working in public relations for a nonprofit organization she loves. Callie is the President and Co-Campus Correspondent of Her Campus at Murray State.