Gainesville High's Crimson Chorus was all the rage in the '70s and '80s. Even Gainesville schools Superintendent Merrianne Dyer lent her vocal stylings to the choral group that once boasted more than 60 singers.

But when Gainesville High choral director Julia Lackey inherited the Crimson Chorus in 2006, there were only a dozen singers in the group, and not a boy among them. Under Lackey's leadership, the chorus has grown to include 45 boys and girls eager to pull off show-stopping performances.

"If you choose some things that they enjoy and some things that they can learn, and expose them to different types of music, they get excited about that," she said. "They really do have a good time and like to sing a lot, which is good for me. It's not like math or English; you don't have to force them to do it."

The Crimson Chorus' rebound parallels the new Fox television show "Glee." The one-hour musical comedy comes from Ryan Murphy, the creator of "Nip/Tuck" and "Popular," and follows an optimistic high school teacher as he tries to transform the school's glee club and inspire a group of ragtag performers to make it to a national competition.

Gainesville High chorus students, however, are not ragtag. They're young musicians who are learning to train their voice as an instrument. They're learning how to read music and interpret the dynamics that breathe emotion into musical scores.

In addition to teaching the chorus classical pieces, Lackey said she tries to keep the repertoire fresh by having a performance at the beginning of each school year that celebrates a decade's top tunes. She said this year students sang songs from the '50s, including Bobby Darin's rousing hit "Splish Splash."

Like the TV show "Glee," the Crimson Chorus also participates in annual competitions. For the past three years, the chorus has earned a superior rating at the High Note Music Festival held each May at Sprayberry High School in Alpharetta.

Janet Vasquez, an 11th-grader in the Crimson Chorus, said she joined because her friends told her she has a good singing voice. She said she's learned a lot since she joined the group more than two years ago.

"Before I joined chorus, I thought it was going to be for nerdy people, but it really helps develop your voice," she said. "Half of the people who joined chorus didn't think they could sing, but their voice develops over time. That's what I think is cool about chorus."

Lackey said the chorus program at Gainesville Middle School has fueled the popularity of the high school's chorus.

Vasquez said when the Crimson Chorus performs at other Gainesville system schools, singers do their best to make the group look exciting to recruit new members. She credits the chorus' new costumes and fun dance moves as the factors that win students over.

"We wore costumes and I guess people have liked it," she said. "... I hope it gets bigger. We work really, really hard to bring out the best in the music group. We need a bigger group to get noticed."

Lackey said students who come from musical families or who have a background singing in church are often the quickest to sign up.

"If their family is a group of musicians, that really opens them up to singing and singing other than what's on the radio," she said.

Tyler Brawner, an 11th-grader in the Crimson Chorus, said singing is a family tradition.

"It's actually been passed down through the family. From my mom to my father, everyone's always been in chorus," he said.

Brawner said he's sure some of his best high school memories will be from chorus.

"This chorus room has definitely felt like a second home for me," he said.