Speak It Into Being

My poor tired ensemble.

It’s been a week, and Thursday night at 7pm is not exactly their highest-energy moment. Many of them are recovering from influenza and other illnesses, and most finished another rehearsal less than 30 minutes before ours started.

But. We couldn’t give up another weekly rehearsal – too much to do! Too much music we all want to make, and we’re already past the halfway point of the year.

So I started by saying:

  1. I’m going to make this rehearsal count…because otherwise you’d be even sadder you weren’t home. Since you’re here, I’m going to respect your time by using it wisely.
  2. We are going to sing the two pieces we sight read on Monday from start to finish without stopping today.

And we did. I think the biggest piece of it was that by speaking the goals into the room at the beginning of rehearsal, we were all primed to make them real. We spoke our goals into being.

Now, it’s a four day weekend. Let’s hope they don’t forget everything between now and next week!