(at times also quickly) what musical conditions to address and to what extent in order to provide the most musical gift to God and to the worshippers.

This means deliberately ignoring what cannot be developed or fixed with the time and resources at hand. It means not often taking 20 or 30 minutes to perfect an exquisite effect in one measure, while greater problems remain elsewhere. It means simplifying diagnoses and making succinct prescriptions; because the musicians will learn more quickly by playing or singing a particular articulation, for example, than by listening to an academic essay on the topic of marcato.

As often as possible, begin by letting the instrumental ensemble or choir play or sing the entire composition, or a major part of it. Listen carefully and decide what it is you are hearing that is most pleasing, and what it is that most detracts from your musical goals. Then focus on these aspects, mixing praise where due with gentle but persistent suggestions where needed. Retuning an alto sax, or analyzing a trombone player's problem of consistently playing some slide positions on the high side may offer more improvement (and certainly more immediate improvement) than 30 minutes spent on the maybe desirable but extremely fine points of the differences in tuning some intervals in the natural scale compared to the same intervals in the well-tempered scale. A diplomatic huddle during a rehearsal break with a loud oboist or a soprano with a nasal tone that cuts through glass will go much farther and more quickly than having the entire group play or sing the same passage over and over in different seating or standing arrangements. Writing a simplified ossia in a string part that you know cannot be mastered in the available time will allow you to spend rehearsal time more productively than by drilling the thirty-second-note run until both you and the technically challenged violinist are thoroughly frustrated.

And just maybe, when some of the obvious musical clutter is speedily dispatched, you might be left with more time to address some of the finer points - like circular breathing?

Dale Elmshaeuser studied composition with Theodore Beck and Jan Bender, choral music with Carlos Messerli and Paul Rosel, and instrumental music and conducting with Charles Krutz at Concordia University in Seward, Nebraska, where he received his bachelor's degree. His master's degree was granted by Concordia University in River Forest, Illinois, after studies with Paul Bunjes, Thomas Gieschen, Richard Hillert and Carl Schalk. Further courses in instrumental music were completed at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville. Dale has written a number of choral, band and instrumental ensemble compositions and arrangements, most of them for use in churches; and BAND AID, a textbook for high school bands. He has also been active as a choral and instrumental director in church and public schools and in churches in the Philadelphia area, the Chicago area, Hong Kong, the St. Louis area, in Canada, and presently in Austin, where he is the director of instrumental music at St. Martin's Lutheran Church. Dale is a member of The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians, and the Texas Music Educators Association.

Kenneth T. Kosche is currently Professor of Music at Concordia University Wisconsin in Mequon, where he directs the Concordia Chorale and the Kammerchor, and teaches conducting, choral literature, and composing/arranging. Dr. Kosche earned his B.S. in Music Education and M.S. degree at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, and his D.M.A. in Choral Conducting from the University of Washington in Seattle. He has served as a minister of music in Illinois, Washington, and Wisconsin. He has taught also in public schools in Illinois, and at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. He was a 1990 Fellow in the Melodious Accord Program, studying in New York with Alice Parker. His creative output includes over 200 published compositions with fifteen publishers, and he was the 1997 winner of the Wisconsin Choral Directors Association composition contest. In 2002

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