Effective and Rewarding Rehearsals

I think effective and rewarding rehearsals can look very different from rehearsal to rehearsal and teacher to teacher, but some over-arching goals of these rehearsals stay consistent: 1. To strive for a positive, lasting change to the sound as the group works towards a goal, 2. To strive for each member of the choir, including the teacher, to learn something at each rehearsal, be it a musical something or otherwise, and 3. For every person involved to find some joy in the process!

While no rehearsal will probably look exactly alike, there are some characteristics that seem to be present in all effective and rewarding rehearsals. The most satisfying rehearsals never seem to include an abundance of talking, but also have a variety of musical ways of getting to a specific point or idea.  Also, varying the amounts of time spent making music and trying to keep those times balanced is something that can make or break the focus of the rehearsal.  When the conductor-teacher can let the choir just sing and make music for a long section of a piece while still knowing when to rehearse shorter excerpts, it lets the singers explore musically and maybe even improve on their own while still allowing the teacher to refocus the class when the need arises. Personally, overcoming challenges always has me leaving rehearsals feeling like I accomplished something. This might mean getting after a difficult couple of measures, an in-depth discussion of the text or text setting, or even just accomplishing what the conductor-teacher had planned for the day. As we have discussed, the preparation and planning on the part of the teacher also plays an important role in the success of a rehearsal so that questions can be answered, music can be experienced by all involved in many different ways, and goals can be accomplished.