Choral singing also has something to teach us about the joy of work. We speak glibly of this all the time, of course, and it’s not that there aren’t other places we experience it. But I think there are few other settings where the rewards of work are so immediate and so transcendently beautiful–even gardening, which seems to me a fairly close approximation, requires a great deal more patience. And, at least sometimes, the actual work is joyful, even before the product appears–it is possible to go into a rehearsal weary or sad and emerge renewed and gladdened even after a plodding practice. Again, there are other contexts in which one has this experience, but it seems particularly reliable and likely with singing, in part, perhaps, because singing requires the full engagement of mind and body, and because it is social.
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John Howell says