The most significant factor in your ensemble’s achievement is time. The hours spent in rehearsal determine a huge portion of how high the group climbs together.
That’s not just true for choirs, of course. It’s true for football teams, marching bands, debate squads, and the school musical, too.
This essay is not advocating for increasing your hours of rehearsal. It’s the opposite.
The Rockford Aces are always functioning at a disadvantage when it comes to time. We meet for just three hours a week – less than nearly all curricular ensembles – and with absences, we almost never rehearse with the full ensemble. I could double the practice time, but I don’t because it wouldn’t be good for my students. Whatever gains in ensemble proficiency would be lost because my ensemble is voluntary, so many more students would think twice before auditioning.
There’s a constant risk of creep in hours required by activities, because it’s the only lever leaders have to continue improving. If we want to get better than we were last year, the obvious solution is to practice more. (The other obvious answers are to improve the quality of the individuals participating and to make rehearsals more efficient, but oftentimes those answers aren’t available to us.)
And so the 5 hour weekly commitment becomes 8, the 10 becomes 12, the 15 becomes 20. And students’ work-life balance, mental health, and freedom to explore are all compromised by the demands of the activity. This is particularly true for experiences that are required (co-curricular, say) or so desirable that students mostly don’t consider quitting (football or the school musical, perhaps.)
In those cases, I think the responsible solution is for leaders to not take more than they must. We must sacrifice a certain percentage of excellence because we value the parameters of the experience for students.
This is hard to justify in competitive experiences like sports, marching band, or even choir. In those cases I think that individual leaders can’t be relied on to make the responsible decision, when the pressure to win can be so strong and universal.
Their bosses, leaders, or organizations must step in. A principal or athletic director should say to their staff, our students’ wellness is more important than winning. Or go up another level, as my state athletic organization does. The Michigan High School Athletic Association has specific practice guidelines that must be adhered to. The duration of practices, permitted season of practice, number of weekly practices are all set outside of the coaches’ hands. That’s to protect the students and the coaches from the pull to increase hours spent.
I have committed to my ensemble achieving as much as it can within the practice hours we’ve set. Could I achieve more if I practiced more? Certainly. But at what cost?