Where are you aiming your ensemble?
I think there are valid reasons for wanting your ensemble to aim to be in the top 1% in terms of musicianship, performance, polish. There are equally valid reasons for not aiming for that.
I would say that I want the Aces, a high school extracurricular TTBB ensemble, to perform at a level on par with the top 10% of peer ensembles. Some years they struggle all year to reach that bar, other years they exceed it.
I don’t aim for the top 1% of peers because I think the effort to move from 90% to 99% comes with substantial tradeoffs. The biggest one is the time commitment required.
My students participate in every part of high school life. They are in marching band, TV studio, drama, succeed academically, and last year we had 13 different varsity sports represented among our 13 members.
If I asked them to do the work, in and out of rehearsal, to consistently reach the top 1%, they would have to sacrifice. We would have to rehearse together more (we sing together 3 hours per week), they would have to practice more outside of rehearsal (I ask for 5 minutes per day/5 days a week), and in general the commitment would be significantly greater.
Would I lose students at that commitment level? Undoubtedly. That would be a tragedy, because many of my best students have been the ones having diverse and rich experiences throughout high school. That’s what I want for my high school students – to be able to try everything they are interested in.
We can’t be the best at everything, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still perform at a high level at most things we try. We can be on a top-tier football team, succeed in a rigorous academic curriculum, and sing in a very high level a cappella group.
If we all work together and agree on where we’re aiming.