When you are working on a project, driving hard with your head down, it's sometimes difficult to see where you are in relationship to the project. As you approach the deadline, you hope that the amount of work left will squeeze into the amount of time remaining. Today I more or less ran out of things to do on this project. My girls sang their program in a big way. Beautiful sounds, dramatic expressiveness, for memory, spectacular solo work. There are places where they sing and you hear the sounds and see them singing but you have to think, "How are they doing that?" It was a very satisfying performance, worthy of a national convention performance. And, they have 4 more rehearsals. We got where I want to be before we reached the deadline. Whew. Now we have 4 more chances to run repetitions of the entire performance to solidify our feel for the real performances next Friday and Saturday in Los Angeles.

You remember the saying "Practice makes perfect!" A nice idea, but incorrect, or incomplete. It's "perfect practice" that makes perfect. Once you get it well in hand, then you must repeat and repeat and repeat. Nothing left to chance. This bunch has worked like salt miners all year. Slaving away. They are not emotional about it. No hysteria. No butterflies. They just work the same everyday, from the beginning to the end of the class. Their performance will seem passionate and emotional, but they will fool the audience. Their craft is so good that the audience will read their practiced nuances as emotion. They are musicians.