I sing in a community treble choir and lately I have noticed a lot of chatter amongst choir members whenever the director stops the music. She will give us a clear instruction but people will keep asking her to reiterate it because they were busy talking to their neighbor. It always takes a while to restart after a stop because she will say “start from measure 30” which is immediately followed by a chorus of “where are we starting? What bar? Where?” always from folks who were talking over her. We are wasting lots of rehearsal time.
I’m the S1 section leader so I would potentially feel comfortable asking members of my own section to save chats for later, but the issue isn’t coming from my section and I don’t think it would be appropriate to shush anyone from across the room. I think ultimately it’s up to the director how she handles it (and I can tell it frustrates her).
Have any of you had this issue in your choir, and how did you feel about it? What, if anything, did you do?