choral
The Invisible Work is Love and Humanity… Joy Paffenroth, WMEA State Chair, Choral
Have you seen the memes out there that talk about all the different hats music teachers wear? It’s a laundry list of descriptors and tasks that seem never ending – teacher, conductor,
mentor, fundraiser, babysitter, diplomat, role model, entertainer, driver, historian, counselor, librarian, therapist, salesperson, manager, mediator, publicist, coordinator, cheerleader, custodian, nurse… The list goes on and on and can feel exhausting to even read. I could write an entire book on the different levels of “invisible labor” that comes with being a choir teacher. Some work is only invisible to those outside of the classroom and some work is invisible to everyone but you. However, for the pur- poses of this publication (and the limits set upon me), I want to address just a couple of the unseen, yet oh so important tasks we do on a daily basis.
Talent vs. Skill
About halfway through my 26-year career, I started to feel really irritated with people telling me how lucky I was (am) to work with such talented students. These com- ments usually came after a concert where the students absolutely knocked their per- formances out of the park. At first, I would smile and nod and agree that indeed I am lucky to work with talented students. But, then it started to nag at me that the word talent implied that they were born with this innate “thing” that made it easy for them to do what they were doing. What people were seeing was actually SKILL. That high level of skill comes from a combination of innate talent, discipline, self-confidence, hard work, failure, self-compassion, team- work and love.
All of those things were invisible to the audience. Some people literally think we just step on stage and the magic happens. (Sometimes I blame the television show “Glee” for that – they sure make the sing- ing parts look easy!) The audience doesn’t see or hear the wrong notes, the frustrations when we just can’t count that one measure,
“That if anyone works hard enough, they can accomplish great things – regardless of where they started. And that’s a lesson they take with them for the rest of their lives.”
the nerves when it’s time to audition for a solo, the tears when the chord gels just right, or the deep discussions that hap- pen around the text. They don’t see the admission of failure, and then the immedi- ate commitment to strategize how to fix what went wrong, and then the implemen- tation of those strategies to find success. All of that happens daily in the rehearsals, but is nowhere to be found in the final performance.
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April 2025
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