As a choirmaster I always worry about whether every choir rehearsal I run is as good as it can be. Working with community choirs is in itself quite a challenge, as you will always have a real mixture of talent and ability particularly in terms of whether or not people can read music.
There is a delicate line to be trodden between spending hours note bashing for the benefit of those who can’t read the notes, versus working on the musicality for those who can! I try in part to get around this by recording rehearsal tracks for my choirs so they can download their part and listen to it in their own time. Despite this I am always conscious of striking the right balance during rehearsals so that every singly choir member gets something positive from the time.
Exactly what people get from the rehearsal is always going to vary from person to person. Obviously my goal is for the choir to learn the music and give a polished performance. But, ultimately there is more to it than that. Particularly with community choirs it is always worth bearing in mind that a lot of members are there to enjoy themselves and have fun making music and singing, as it is perhaps their only opportunity to do so. As a result it’s always good when, as happened recently, I get mesages from some of my best singers to say they find rehearsals uplifting.