I've never been asked to sing a solo and oddly, I've never been asked more than once to be a part of a choir. So I'm just taking Anne's word for it.
Here's what Anne says.
Over the past few weeks, I have had the fun of singing in a choir preparing John Rutter’s Gloria for performance next week. Although, I have done quite a bit of solo singing, it has been years since I worked intensively on a choral piece. I had forgotten how different it is!
First, singing in a choir is not about how beautiful your voice sounds, it is about how beautiful all the voices sound together. And secondly, when you are a solo singer good pronunciation is about keeping your vowels and consonants as clear as possible. When you are in choir pronunciation is about how the audience will hear what you sing. For example: if I sing as a soloist “Bless you” I pronounce it “Blehss you”. But in a choir, we sing “Bliss you”, because that way the audience will hear “Bless you”.
Choirs are pragmatic and I wish churches would be more like them. Too many church people focus on how comfortable they feel instead of how comfortable a newcomer or visitor is. They maintain comfort by doing things the same way (We can’t do it that way) even though that way really no longer makes sense in 2008. Recently I heard of a church (growing smaller by the day) lodging an official
complaint against their pastor because he dresses casually and is seen regularly
hanging out in town. They want him in a suit, sitting in his office. It doesn’t matter that he is doing his best to make the church more visible in the community and to bring in new people. The church people don’t feel comfortable with where he is and what he is wearing. We can’t do it that way.
When will we learn that it is not about each individual feeling comfortable, it is about making the stranger feel comfortable. When will we learn that it is not about what we say – but what the potential visitor hears?
Seems like it all comes back to the question of why we are there (in church). Are we there for ourselves or are we there for others? I think most of us would say we are there for others, but our actions, habits, practices etc are what really answers the question.
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