1. When I receive a thank you or other appreciative comment after mass, I make a note of saying I couldn't do anything without my choir and organist. Spreading credit around is normal etiquette of course, but I think this is the first time in my life I've deeply meant it. My people are talented, dedicated, and easy to get along with, and I love working with them. Also, getting these comments is so satisfying and encouraging. I don't know if the people making them even know how much they mean.

2. Before I was a director it was easy to imagine how I would perfectly select repertoire and establish a choral style and so on. It's only when you're in the role that it dawns on you how many different personalities you have to do something to appease. You have people (be they priest, congregation, or choir member) who love chant and tolerate polyphony, and people who are the opposite. You have a skilled but temperamental organist who is attached to his preferred book of accompaniment. Some pieces you think are excellent just don't click with the choir for one reason or another. You have a weak tenor or alto section and have to factor that into all of your programming. And so on.

3. Somewhat related to 2, you imagine how you'll polish everyone up, but in reality there's no time to work on technique with people. All time is spent rehearsing repertoire. I have go-ahead from my priest to enroll us in the "Choir Snacks" app, which I hope will be helpful.

4. I have never taken voice lessons, and learned to sing from square notes. Growing up I learned music on the flute, clarinet and soprano/alto recorder - all treble clef instruments. As a result I have a real weakness in sightsinging from modern notation (because I learned to read modern music as instrument fingerings rather than vocal production) and while I understand the bass clef just fine, I'm still not fluent in it. I have improved this year by absorption and practice, but I have to consciously take it in hand going forward. For the first time in my life I regret not learning the piano when I was young - I think it really puts you in command of theory and practice in a way other instruments don't.

5. Planning the practices at the busier times of year is a challenging part of the job that I didn't expect. We sang the Octave of the Nativity with next to no practice because I failed to properly plan our limited practice time. Our performance was mediocre. This was probably my biggest fail of the year.

6. I got fed up with print-outs every practice (that would inevitably get lost) so over the holidays created pressboard repertoire duotangs for every member of the choir containing our entire 2025 repertoire. They are 100 pages long. I'm sure the priest felt utter dismay to watch to me print out 1200 pages of sheet music (lol), though I believe it will save resources in the long run. The choir members are actually kind of excited about them, but time will tell if they are worth the effort.

7. Nothing else I do in life gives me the satisfaction and growth this does. I'm immensely grateful to Our Lord for the blessing of being able to contribute in this way to my parish.

Thanks for reading my blog post!