# Is the sing-a-long dead?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [April 25, 2015, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508 "2015-04-25T08:12:29Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2015, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508/21 "2015-04-27T17:20:16Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#):
>
> To parents with elementary school kids:
>
> Do they still have talent shows where most people sing and dance?
>
> Do kids have some kind of music class or a music bus where you get cheap like instruments like recorders to play with?
>
> Are non-music specialty kids (ie. random kids in a class) forced to perform in music assemblies like singing Christmas songs or whatnot?
Not a parent but friends of lots of parents on Facebook. Just saw a vid clip of a friend’s son playing piano in a talent show this weekend. And I have been to a couple kids’ music programs at my niece’s pre-school already.
As for recorders, I don’t know. They never did that at my school anyway (we learned to play the xylophone and never in concert)
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### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2015, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508/22 "2015-04-27T17:21:23Z")
It’s been 22 years since I volunteered at a summer camp but I bet they’re still singing around the bonfire.
I wonder if they ever adopted the official camp song that I wrote to “Rock & Roll Is Here to Stay”. The previous one was to the tune of “Turkey in the Straw”.
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### Author:  [@orderfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orderfire)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2015, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508/23 "2015-04-27T19:11:29Z")
When I was in boarding school in the late 70’s, we all had some sort of job to do every day and mine were usually in the cafeteria kitchen, washing pots or scraping plates. A spontaneously wack sing-a-long often erupted with multi-part harmonies and vocal “orchestration” during clean up times, I recall an especially joyful rendition of “Happy Together” that almost drove the cafeteria ladies insane.
Great memory.
😃
I think it might happen more often with theatre or arts school kids.
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### Author:  [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2015, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508/24 "2015-04-27T19:20:18Z")
A friend, as part of a comic routine, discusses this and has the audience join in on his personal solution; American Pie. You would be surprised how well it does even among younger than 45 crowds.
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### Author:  [@Turpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turpentine)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2015, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508/25 "2015-04-28T17:49:49Z")
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> I think people are less likely these days to do art or music themselves, there seems to be an idea that if you aren’t “professional” you shouldn’t do such things. Sure, there used to be a lot of people who were crap at singing, but they enjoyed themselves and had fun. These days, they’re told to shut up and someone puts on commercial music.
Nah, I think people are more likely than ever to do non-professional arts and music. Seriously, haven’t you ever seen Etsy? And youtube must have a few hundred million videos of amateurs singing or playing guitar or both.
And I haven’t heard that sing-a-longs have gone away, either. You’re just less likely to come across them in everyday life if you’re not a toddler or a parent of one.
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### Author:  [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2015, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508/26 "2015-04-29T03:09:25Z")
The Hollywood Bowl does them: [The Sound of Music](http://www.hollywoodbowl.com/tickets/sing-long-sound-of-music/2015-06-26).
Walt Disney World as a [Frozen sing-a-long](https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/entertainment/hollywood-studios/frozen-sing-along-celebration/).
It’s probably pretty tough to find songs/musicals that are universal enough for a successful sing-a-long nowadays.
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### Author:  [@August\_West](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/August_West)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2015, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-sing-a-long-dead/718508/27 "2015-04-29T14:43:22Z")
We have campfires at our house in the summer, and most of the time someone brings a guitar and it turns into a sing-along. Depending on my mental condition, I’ll even bust out the banjo every once in a great while.
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