Balancing Novelty & Familiarity

Part of what makes the first few years of any job, and particularly leading a choral ensemble, difficult is the novelty. Everything is new, nothing can be codified. (Compare it even to a math teaching job, where the curriculum and even the daily teaching goals might be standardized within the school, the district, or even farther upstream! A music educator’s work changes dramatically based on the students in the room, the repertoire, and so many other factors distinct to your classroom.)

The joy of doing something again is the ability to balance that constant novelty with some familiarity. Familiarity can show up in lots of ways: the existence of specific digital documents that only needed to be tweaked, not created; the relationships with collaborators and colleagues that can support the work more easily; the knowledge of the timeline of the year, of the project.

This familiarity brings a decrease of the stress that comes with novelty. Since not everything is novel, the stress is at a more manageable level, less comprehensive.

I’m about to embark on a 9-month journey leading to my third European choir tour and my third participation in the World Choir Games. The fact that they’re the third of each makes it so much less stressful – even though I know there will be new wrinkles, things I can’t anticipate, I am confident in the fact that I’ve been here before.