“Real Talk: we will only sing this piece, top-to-bottom, a dozen or fewer times before our performance in six weeks. We’ll do more partial runs, rehearsals on sections, etc. But complete runs? Probably closer to six than twelve.”
It’s good to have real perspective, and to internalize that time singing together is precious. One way to do that is to point out how very few times you’ll sing a piece before you perform it.
Here’s the secret: our students don’t know it, but time is growing short on this school/concert year. And we need to know it before they realize it, so we can plan.