One of the joys I’ve experienced as a prison choir facilitator is volunteering alongside of students in my college classes and in choir assistantship capacities. Most semesters since the inception of the OMAG Choir I have selected one or two undergraduate students who serve as OMAG Choir Assistants. These students typically have bass/tenor voices and serve as a vocal model for the OMAG singers. As a person with a treble voice, it is difficult for me to provide a vocal model in the octave in which the bass/treble singers are to sing their vocal parts. For an inexperienced singer, it is quite challenging to hear someone sing a melodic line and then transpose it into their own vocal range. Therefore, having bass/tenor vocal models has been key to working with the OMAG singers. In addition to vocally bolstering a section within the OMAG Choir, student choral assistants conduct sectional (small group) rehearsals, warm-ups, and/or full-group rehearsals of songs that ultimately they conduct in performances at the prison.
Additionally satisfying to observe, however, are the professional relationships that are crafted among the student assistants and the OMAG singers. For the singers, the college students represent the youth that many of the residents did not have or which was truncated for a variety of reasons. Their presence also represents a connection to the “outside” community. The men and assistants share life stories: what the students are studying, what they are practicing for recital presentations, what their professional aspirations are. There are also moments of mentoring. I had a student who was telling the men of coursework that was “less than successful.” The singers gave him a pep talk about the privilege of being in college. The assistants talk about how the experiences with the choir have had a lasting impact on them. Our debriefings in the car rides from the prison back to the college are at times profound.
One of the paradoxical issues about bringing choral assistants and even classes of students (in the course I teach called “Arts Behind Bars”) is that they see the OMAG singers as “ordinary people.” Yes, they could be just like people who the students see walking down the street. Yet within the prison context, there are rules of engagement that must be observed: no exchanging of personal or contact information, no hugs, being aware of one’s physical proximity. The questions arise: “Why do we have to treat the residents differently? They look and act just like we do. Why are the prison rules so limiting, isolating, and demeaning?” So, in one sense, students are experiencing the residents’ humanity demonstrated in their “best possible selves” and yet there are limitations on how they interact with one another. One of my favorite examples of this occurred at the conclusion of an Oberlin-Grafton Arts Gala. I was speaking with a resident and the prison warden. The resident was exhilarated by the OMAG performance (and his solo!). The singer said to me, “Well, I can’t hug you, even though you’re like a mom to me, so I’ll hug the warden instead.” And, he did!
Looks and behaviors…they can be deceiving. We don’t know the triggers and issues that the residents might experience as a result of our interactions with them. The residents don’t know the students’ triggers, either (and there have been some!). We see the men at their best during rehearsals. They love the opportunity to be in the choir and don’t want to lose this “privilege.” We see normalized behaviors and interactions among each other, yet we simply don’t know each other’s story. It is challenging to bring caution into student and resident interactions when each wants to engage in normalcy. And, yet we are volunteering within a prison…
Singing Behind Bars 