If you planned Thanksgiving carefully, then you, like me, have spent the last several days enjoying meals made from the leftovers. You put in so much effort to prepare that one special meal, it’s worth making enough to be able to keep enjoying it.
This is a good argument for front-loading your year of music-making. Start with the hard stuff, work your ensembles good and hard, and you can enjoy the payoff for the rest of the year. The leftovers from those early months of intense work will nourish your ensemble for a long time.
Vocal jazz, with its steep learning curve for both music and sense of ensemble, is particularly in need of Thanksgiving-level prep, and the benefits of musical leftovers particularly welcome. For the last several years, I’ve seen significant turnover each semester in my vocal jazz ensemble at GRCC, Shades of Blue. The end result is that each semester is like the making of Thanksgiving dinner, but we never get to enjoy the leftovers, since the semester ends.
If you can, organize your year so you can enjoy the leftovers – it’s the best way to make the work you’re putting anyway pay off.