Creating A Choral Culture

Distinctive culture is an element we celebrate as we travel around the world. Similarly, back at home, as convenient as the predicable restaurant, grocery, drugstore, or clothing franchise may be, it is the boutique that most often offers a glimpse of the uniqueness of a region. A boutique demonstrates artistry and craft, personal style, and endearingly, locale.

In our various home communities, a distinctive culture can be detected, beginning with particular details, and often gathering to make obvious a clear regionalism. For example, in the Pacific Northwest, it is easy to detect a distinctive coffee culture, and a distinctive seafood culture. There are many other gastro delights enjoyed by those that live in this region, which together contribute to a unique food culture. In the Southeastern region of the US where I grew up, there is a distinctive basketball culture. Children play the sport early in life, on both school and community teams, and at the high school and college level basketball forms part of a region’s identity. Basketball joins other sports that collectively contribute to a regional sports culture.

Clotaire Rapaille in The Culture Code, analyzes it this way: “When a man and a woman have a child, they have a little human being rather than a bird, a fish, or an alligator. Their genetic code dictates this. When an American man and an American woman have a child, they have a little American. The reason for this is not genetic; it is because a different code—the Culture Code—is at work.”   He adds “All of the different codes for all of the different imprints, when put together, create a reference system that people living in these cultures use without being aware of it.” 

We tend to take for granted the essence of our culture. It is generally understood that people enjoy and celebrate their culture, and that the culture will be perpetuated, whether or not a person participates in the distinctive details. It is simply the way things are. There isn’t even a sense of “take it or leave it”, since there is no real thought anyone would “leave it”.

While cultures are clearly identified today as a part of the complexion of the regions referenced above, this has not always been the case. Coffee beans are not grown in the Pacific Northwest, basketball does not have its roots in the Southeast, and all babies are not American. These cultures were created, and stem from even more deeply set cultures. For example, the sports culture of the Southeast may stem from a culture that John Ed Pearce in Days of Darkness identifies as the “culture of honor” that characterizes the people that inhabited the southern Appalachian area. No matter what one may think of today’s pervasive sports culture in Kentucky, most would agree that it is preferable to the feuding culture of a former era that it may have replaced.

The point—culture is, and can be, created. With this in mind, a choral culture is possible in a single locale, or in an entire region. It is not out of the question that an entire nation could participate in, and celebrate, a choral culture. If anyone doubts this, I point to Wales or Estonia as national examples of a choral culture.

The United States has an inherent singing culture, and could therefore have a choral culture. These singing and choral roots can be documented historically, at least through the late nineteenth century. The rise in the visibility of the professional performer such as the 19th century traveling minstrel musician may have obscured that singing culture, but it did not erase it. This distraction from an amateur music making culture was further advanced through 19th century promoters such as P.T. Barnum of circus fame, as Barnum and others featured talents such as Jenny Lind and Blind Tom, drawing attention to exceptional performers. Today’s contemporary minstrel shows and talent promoters perpetuate the same distraction, covering up, but not erasing, the undercurrent of a singing culture in the United States.

As distractions such as American Idol and the potentially interesting The Sing-Off come and go, be aware that underneath today’s minstrel shows and media productions is a singing culture. According to the NEA Arts Participation 2008 survey report, choral participation, either through singing or attendance, among U.S. adults rose from 4.8% in 2002 to 5.2% in 2008, an increase of 0.4 pp. http://arts.endow.gov/news/news09/SPPA-highlights.html We have not channeled and harnessed the singing undercurrent and culture that is all around us.

I believe our situation is much like the two traveling shoe salesmen that visited a developing country in search of new markets. Following the visit, one reported back, “Situation hopeless. They don’t wear shoes here,” while the other reported, “Glorious opportunity. They don’t have shoes yet.” (told by Benjamin Zander www.ted.com/talks/benjamin_zander_on_music_and_passion.html)

As choral directors, ours is a glorious opportunity—everyone can sing, and underneath the professional show, there is a choral culture in our community, and in our nation, waiting on us. My desire is for our member-directors to more and more see that the United States has been a nation with a singing and choral culture, and could once again be described as such. My hope is that we will not be distracted by the attention that today’s minstrel shows and talent promoters draw due to commercial realities (and I appreciate their entertainment mission, as ephemeral as it is). I hope that we will take inspiration from our colleagues in Canada that have changed their name from the Association of Canadian Choral Directors to the Association of Canadian Choral Communities, acknowledging that choral music is a communal and cultural experience. And finally, it is my hope that those distractions that keep any American choral director from seeing the limitless potential of a choral culture in their community will fade as the enormous potential becomes abundantly clear.

Tim Sharp, Executive Director

American Choral Directors Association