{"id":3077,"date":"2017-09-29T20:39:41","date_gmt":"2017-09-29T20:39:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/?p=3077"},"modified":"2017-09-29T22:48:03","modified_gmt":"2017-09-29T22:48:03","slug":"understanding-the-harmonies-of-the-wabash-glee-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/2017\/09\/29\/understanding-the-harmonies-of-the-wabash-glee-club\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding the Harmonies of the Wabash Glee Club"},"content":{"rendered":"

Being at Wabash not quite a year, I still find that I\u2019m in the \u2018I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m getting myself into\u2019 stage quite often.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s how I felt before I took pictures in various classrooms last spring, knowing I probably wouldn\u2019t have the slightest clue as to what the professors would be talking about.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s how I felt last week when I experienced Wabash Homecoming festivities for the first time. (As much as students tried, nothing could prepare me for being inside the ropes on the Mall the moment that Chapel Sing began.)<\/p>\n

Yesterday, however, as I walked from Hovey Cottage to the Allen Center for the first evening of rehearsals for the Glee Club\u2019s 125th Reunion, I thought<\/em> I knew what I was getting into there.<\/p>\n

\"Wabash<\/a>
Wabash Glee Club began rehearsals Thursday for their 125th Reunion on Saturday.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Being a singer and a former member of a competitive choir, I understand spending long hours with the same group of people. I understand how well you can get to know someone on long trips. Therefore, I thought I understood the Glee Club.<\/p>\n

But the more I watched alumni come down the stairs to Knowling Fieldhouse, oftentimes greeted with a huge embrace, I began to understand that these aren\u2019t just former Glee Club members who are coming back. They\u2019re not just old friends, either. For many, they\u2019re best friends. For others, they\u2019re brothers.<\/p>\n

Leave it to Associate Professor of Music and former member David Blix \u201970 to figure out what\u2019s about the Glee Club makes their relationships seem so special.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe music. When you sing together as a group, you have to learn to listen to the other guys,\u201d he explains. \u201cNot only the guys in your section but all the other sections going on. I\u2019m wondering if just that basic activity of listening to how the parts come together and how the music works doesn\u2019t somehow sharpen or deepen the human relationships. I think it does.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Rob<\/a>
Rob Shook ’83 and Kaz Koehring ’18<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One perfect example of the incredible bonds that can come out of the Wabash Glee Club would be NAWM President Rob Shook \u201983 and Kaz Koehring \u201918.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe met in Glee Club when he came to visit the fall of my freshman year and we stayed in touch a little bit,\u201d Koehring said. \u201cBut then we went on tour to Texas that spring. We\u2019re Lambda Chi brothers and ended up riding together some place in the car. It was only 20-30 minutes, but I was able to share some of the things about my mom. I cried a little bit. We hugged each other. That was probably the moment that we became best friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

As president of the alumni association, Shook tries to connect with as many students as he possibly can. But he connected with Koehring at the very time that Koehring needed a constant in his life. And that\u2019s what Shook became.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talk all the time,\u201d Koehring said. \u201cI can share anything I want with Rob. I was talking to him earlier about creating a family. And he is my family.\u201d<\/p>\n

As I sat on the risers Thursday and watched nearly 100 current and former Wabash Glee Club members rehearse together, a family was exactly what I saw.<\/p>\n

It was evident each time a current Glee Club member helped a former member with a piece a music he already knew or when two friends couldn\u2019t stifle their laughter anymore and simply lost it.<\/p>\n

So to the Wabash Glee Club members, past and present, preparing for the big concert tomorrow, I say: Happy Family Reunion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Being at Wabash not quite a year, I still find that I\u2019m in the \u2018I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m getting myself into\u2019 stage quite often. It\u2019s how I felt before I took […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/09\/0B8A6632-1024x683.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3077"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3086,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3077\/revisions\/3086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}