Chorus
All about what it takes to be in this musical group!
Chorus: Conformity
Being part of a musical class means that you must conform with others around you in order to put songs in together correctly and sing the correct notes. In the Asch Line experiment, conformity became evident when people were asked to give their answers out loud rather than privately. By speaking out loud, people were susceptable to falling under the assumption that other people had better answers than them, and because of this, they would conform and all choose the same answer to avoid the chance of being wrong or sticking out if they chose their own personal answer. In chorus, we use conformity, just in different ways. Often times, our teacher will ask one person out of our section(soprano, alto, tenor, or base) to sing a verse of a song correctly and alone. When they do it correctly, everyone else in the group must conform to match the same pitch as the person who just sang. We often fall into a group think when this happens because a lot of people in my class aren't too sure of the notes and just go off and trust what other people say is the correct note is and join in on what they think it may be.
Chorus: Authority & Obedience
Every day in chorus, we have our very own director. Our teacher, Mrs. Fowler, uses her authority to push us to our limits and often go outside our comfort zone and sing songs and hit notes we do not wish to sing. Because she is in a position of authority, we automatically assume she knows what she is talking about, and in turn we obey whatever it is she tells us to do. During the times when she asks us to do something we're not always comfortable with, I sometimes think of Milgram's Experiment. In his experiment, Milgram pushed and persuaded "teachers" to shock "students" when they answered a question incorrectly. The teachers always listened to the advisor of the experiment because they were in an obedience position and he was in a position of authority. It has been said that people will go to great lengths and do things that they normally wouldn't do when they are being watched by a figure of authority, and this is true for both my chorus class and Milgram's Experiment.
Chorus: Challenges
Like I mentioned before, we are often pushed to our limits in chorus. Every so often, we will be grouped up to sing songs for the class, or we will be chosen to sing a solo. When singing a solo, a person is more likely to pick a song that is easy to sing so that when and if they get nervous, the lyrics and melody are easy to remember. People normally do fine with their solos and receive high grades. When they receive these high grades, their self esteem gets boosted because they believe they are awesome since they just received such a great report on thier singing and this would be considered self serving bias. Sometimes, however, people get too nervous to sing and do well singing in front of the class. Of course, when they're singing alone at home and no one can hear them they are totally fine, but when it comes to being in front of others and facing judgement, they feel like they have to try harder and this sometimes ends up to them not doing so great and this would be considered the fundamental attribution error. In the groups though, group polarization becomes evident because since it is a group of people instead of just one person, they feel like they can handle a more difficult song since they are not alone and have a support system to back them up. If I were to compare my chorus class to the Zimbardo Experiment, Mrs. Fowler would represent a guard, and the students in my class would be the prisoners because we have to obey what our authority figure tells us to do.