In considering an unexpectedly shorter rehearsal schedule, the school band director explained, “If we were going to cut a piece from the concert program, it was going to be one of the easier songs. The challenging pieces are too fun to not play.”

In the end, she didn’t cut any songs and the concert was a great success.

Not all directors think this way. With limited rehearsal time, some might take the perfectly reasonable approach of playing the easier songs (and playing them well) and discarding the more complicated arrangements.

Luckily, some choose not to aim for perfectly reasonable … but to aim for remarkable.

And we all benefit from that moxie.