The Beauty of a Deadline

My barbershop quintet just pulled of a nice performance last night. It was not perfect; there were moments of "what was that?" along with "Ooh, that was nice." Perfectly acceptable for our debut.

We had been discussing and planning and putting off this performance for about a year. I had a terrible work and travel schedule in 2010, and it just didn't work. In March this year, we settled on a date range and venue. In early May, we booked the date. Magically, committing to a date crystallized a lot of things.

"Axel F" would not be ready. "Ward, the Pirate" would not be ready. "Old Man Noah" needed some notes fixed. And so did every other song we were targeting, except for "Wings". Our concentration improved, rehearsals became much more focused.

We're a very democratic group, and rely mostly on self-correction. If I'm missing notes, it's my job to say so, stop rehearsal, and get them fixed. I can also work on them at home if I have a piano. From time to time, some notes will be consistently missed, and then someone else will point them out, and get them fixed. We don't spent much rehearsal time working on blend or diction. I don't think we purposely ignore them; we all just assume that everyone else is ok and doing his best.

A concert deadline changed that entire dynamic. We're comfortable enough with each other that we don't get offended when corrected. And we started doing that more. We started spending more effort on diction, taming the volume to help blend and pitch. We made some decisive changes on dynamics to give the music more shape. And we were able to hit 10-15 pieces of music in a rehearsal, instead of the usual 5 or so.

Our musicianship improved. Our focus improved. And the final product that we put out is worthy of a listen.

In the end, the deadline pushed us to bring our product from 85% polish to 100% polish. We could no longer ignore the unfinished bits and pieces. For an amateur group like ours, that made all the difference.

What's next? Preparing for another concert, of course. We already have the venue and parts of the program chosen. This one will be better. You'll find information on us and upcoming events at www.themorningstars.org.