Your choir had thirty rehearsals this year: 60 hours together to work on making music, making art.
That’s not enough time.
It’s not enough time for artistry. It’s not enough time to cover all the subjects you want to cover, or learn all the music you put in their folders. It’s certainly not enough time to teach all the Big Lessons (musical and beyond) that you want to teach.
So you all make do. You cover as much as you can, and trust that the rest will wait for another day. The group makes art they don’t have time to make, because you and they agree to care enough to make it. You strive make each hour count, and to leave exhausted from our commitment to the music.
And now, perhaps, the last rehearsal is past for this year’s group – a concert this Friday and they’ll probably never sing together again as a discrete group.
You worry that you missed something along the way – a chord, a concept, a better approach, a hurting singer in need of a quiet word. You worry that every year.
In the end, that’s why you keep trying to get better at your job. Because the more effective you are, the better you can use those 60 precious hours to make better art, teach better lessons, help raise better humans.