When I started singing, I was going to school. I remember some of the people in school singing, and they had a choir. I would just watch and listen. Finally I started at least attempting to try to do what they was doing. When I was younger, we started going to church. I can't say that we were always, you know, the most church-going people.

August Alsina

Christine Bass was my high school music teacher. She took a program on its last legs and within a few years turned into one of the best programs in the country. Our high school dominated national choir competitions all through her 20-plus year tenure.

Aaron Lazar

Teacher Pet Music

I sang in a reggae band. And then there was a soul band where I sang back-up vocals and some lead. And I was also in a women's a capella group. And I was in the gospel choir at school. Actually, I've always been in choirs. Or some kind of group. Just because I love singing so much. But I truthfully never thought of it as a career.

Abigail Washburn

Women Truth Men

I played piano and was always in the choir. I tried to play flute because all the pretty girls played flute.

Abigail Washburn

Ways Way Use

In middle school, I really didn't have music, but in high school, I remember taking a lot of choir and drama.

Adam Lambert

Music Us Taking

By high school, I was telling everyone, 'Oh, I'm going to be a doctor when I grow up,' because my dad was always saying to me, 'Pick a career path where you're always going to be necessary.' But by junior year, I was president of choir, I was the lead in the school play, and I just loved being onstage performing.

Aja Naomi King

Love Car Age

I've been performing since I was a child; my mother would have to pull me aside and tell me that I wasn't onstage. I was a cheerleader, president of choir, and in the school play.

Aja Naomi King

Age Would Tell

Why preach to the choir? You reach more independents and even more Democrats on Fox News given their huge audience than you would on other networks. So I'm grateful to have that opportunity to have that platform.

Alan Colmes

Work You Would

I was too shy to do any vocal lessons or go to choirs; I just didn't want to be seen doing it. It's something that I kept to myself. I started easing into it, and I started doing talent shows, and YouTube really helped with that, too.

Alessia Cara

Art YouTube You

I had been in a professional boys' choir, and as a boy soprano, you're aware that your voice has an expiration date.

Alexander Chee

War Your You

I feel a part of the congregation. I've never had to do special music. The kids sing in the choir. It's just normal. We're treated like everybody else.

Amy Grant

Music Art Very

I always went to Sunday school, sang in the choir.

Ann-Margret

Ways Way UN

I sang a lot as a little girl and entered competitions. I loved singing in choirs, but it was as I got older that I really found my voice.

Annie Lennox

Pet Love Voice

I loved going to church. I enjoyed being a part of the choir and just doing things in and around the church. But as a young girl, I certainly enjoyed watching and listening to my dad.

Aretha Franklin

Love Art Young

I've been playing music all my life, from being a choir soloist at Symphony Hall as a youngster to playing in bands through high school and college at Kent State. Went in the service at 17, out before I was 21.

Arthur Godfrey

Music Life Youngster

When I started singing, I was going to school. I remember some of the people in school singing, and they had a choir. I would just watch and listen. Finally I started at least attempting to try to do what they was doing. When I was younger, we started going to church. I can't say that we were always, you know, the most church-going people.

August Alsina

Art Younger Young

I was a choir boy my whole life.

Austin Aries

Life Whole Who

I feel like people have been so used to listening to choirs during Christmas, so they love voices when it comes to Christmas, and that is exactly what we are.

Avi Kaplan

Love Christmas Voices

We were the choir nerds.

Avi Kaplan

Were T Nerds

In our local Baptist church, I sang in the choir and formed a gospel quartet. When our minister caught me messing with his guitar, he taught me three positions - one, four and five. After that, I taught myself to play.

B. B. King

Art Wit Tis

When Kendrick Lamar blasts Mr. Trump, he is preaching to the choir. When Eminem does it, there's a good chance Trump voters are actually listening.

Bari Weiss

Good Chance Voters

I usually speak with all my drummers so that I write my songs with them in mind, and we'll have bass sounds, choir sounds, and then you can multi-task with all these orchestral sounds. Through the magic medium of technology, I can play all kinds of sounds - double bass and stuff.

Bat for Lashes

I played the trumpet for nine years, and then I joined the choir after that, and then I was in musicals in high school.

Bebe Rexha

When I was at school, I was in choirs more than anything else, from a very young age, about 9 years old. And then I started taking drum lessons.

Ben Barnes

I've never had a very quiet voice. I tried in choir to make it smaller, and it just didn't work out. And I listened to a lot of soul music when I was growing up on my own accord. But I was mostly into Mama Cass and Gladys Knight, and they all had big voices too; just different than mine.

Beth Ditto

Like a lot of artists, I started out as a singer in my church choir when I was a child.

Big Freedia

I was a choir director for my high school. Of my friends, I was the more rational one, because I was the choir girl!

Big Freedia

I was a choir boy for 3 years in high school at St. George's in Newport, Rhode Island.

Billy Bush

I was in a show choir. I can't sing or dance to save my life, but I was very passionate. People said my parents paid the choir director to let me in. It was actually the parents who started that one!

Blake Lively

I was class president, on the cheerleading squad, in a competitive show choir, and in, like, six different clubs.

Blake Lively

When I moved to Seattle in fourth grade, I joined the Seattle Girls' Choir. It's a world-class choir, and we competed, toured Europe, and went and sang at the Vatican, so it was a really awesome experience to have that young.

Bonnie McKee

I was always super, super musical. So my parents recognized that and put me in choirs, piano lessons, and all that.

Bonnie McKee

When I got married, I hired a great choir - the St. James Choir, an all-black gospel choir - to sing at my wedding.

Brad Paisley

I belong to a gospel choir. They know I am an atheist but they are very tolerant.

Brian Eno

I was in show choir in high school.

Brian Tyree Henry

My school had the dopest arts program - the dopest show choir, the dopest marching band. I couldn't sing or play an instrument a lick, but I was just going to fake it till I make it.

Brian Tyree Henry

I was always keen to get involved in the school drama productions and was a member of the school choir. I was lucky to have attended schools that took music and drama very seriously and the teachers were just brilliant.

Bronagh Gallagher

Most people think that Heaven is a choir, and all you will do is sing.

Bruce Wilkinson

I can imagine myself as an old man writing music for choir or orchestra. I don't know that I'll be touring six months out of the year in a rock band when I'm 60.

Bryce Dessner

My little brother and grandma told me I could sing. I used to sing in church, too. Not like in the choir or anything, but for people around the church... on the church bus going home and Christmas plays.

Bryson Tiller

I used to sing in church, too. Not like in the choir or anything, but for people around the church... on the church bus going home and Christmas plays.

Bryson Tiller

Ever since I was a child I've always been very attracted to melodies. Whether I hear Jeff Beck, a choir, an ocean or the wind, there's always a melody in there.

Carlos Santana

I was born in New York, but I grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut - that's where I went to school. I remember begging my way into choir in the 3rd grade, because you're not supposed to get in until 4th grade.

Caroline Polachek

The first one I remember singing on stage was 'Somewhere Out There' from 'An American Tail.' I was around 7, and my choir teacher at school asked me if I would sing it. My parents told me that I needed to move around the stage, so for the entire time I just walked back and forth from side to side while I was singing - there's videotape of it.

Carrie Underwood

I was never interested in singing in the church choir or in school. I was more interested in becoming a musician.

Cassandra Wilson

I always sang in church always was in a gospel choir and directed choirs and always performed, but I never thought of it as a powerful thing.

Charles King

I think the Mormon Tabernacle Choir is as great as it is because it's become it's a labor of love. They love what they do.

Charles Osgood

I was an altar boy and a choir member.

Cheech Marin

Hey, I was raised in the church. I was an altar boy and a choir member. I almost became a priest - until common sense grabbed hold of me.

Cheech Marin

Anybody can reach anywhere from five to 15 million people weekly making a president look like an idiot, as I did back then, or Tina Fey did with Sarah Palin... You're always preaching to the choir one way or the other.

Chevy Chase

You know what I do on Sundays? I sing in a choir. I sing in a Greek Orthodox choir, and I'm the only hillbilly tenor in the Orthodox Church.

Chris Hillman