Video 1 – Introduction to conducting

Checklist

1. Planning and preparation

• Inadequate score study – learning the score on the podium 'My conductor loves the music so much he can’t take his eyes out of the score'.

• No systematic rehearsal plan.

• Preparation of music, not enough parts, wrong parts, bad copies, handing out music during rehearsal.

• Allowing rehearsals to start late and finish late.

• Failure to check music for rehearsal figures, failure to mark and number your score accordingly.

2. The rehearsal environment

• Incorrect set-up. Procedure for setting up.

• Inadequate, old or loose stands, poor equipment.

• Poor lighting.

• Acoustics not good for careful listening on the part of you and your players.

• The use of a podium.

• Height of conductors stand, height of player’s stands, height of percussionists stands.

• Storage of equipment (and cases) during rehearsal.

• Your access to audio-visual equipment for playback, recording your group, and recording yourself.

• Access to a whiteboard (smartboard).

• Visible clock.

• Windows and other distractions.

3. Rehearsal techniques

• Is there a routine for starting your rehearsal?

• The tuning note – what does it represent to you and the players? ∙Support, project, command (but don’t be bombastic or patronising or worst of all sarcastic).

• Expecting players to be mind readers.

• Talking too much, not playing enough.

• Discipline – the music is the discipline, but failing that how is the focus/motivation of your players?

• Distractions – phones, books, study material.

• Changing your mind, confusing directions.

• Talking at length with baton in ‘ready’ position.

• Working too long on one passage, especially involving only one or a few players.

• Making effective use of whiteboard and audio-visual aids, recordings, dvd’s

• Lacking the ability to analyse, diagnose problems and prescribe solutions. Use of analogies and metaphors (not enough, too much or just right).

• Singling out players, getting ‘personal’ and confrontational. Not demanding enough - consistent, insistent and persistent explanations –

  • • Your players will play only as well in tune as you demand.

    • Your players will play only as soft a piano as you demand.

• Failure to teach players to listen, to be pro-active. Make the players part of your rehearsal, give them the opportunity to contribute, to think and take ownership of the music, be a part of the music, be ‘inside’ the music.

• Establishing a pencil culture.

4. Non verbal communication

• Inadequate baton technique:

  • Too much emphasis on technique? Too much emphasis on artistry to the neglect of technique?

  • The words 'watch me' are meaningless if you have nothing for them to watch. Instead teach your players what to look for in the stick and in your body language.

  • Beware that you do not scold them for playing the very thing your baton has just finished indicating. Train the stick to tell the truth.

• Eye contact and its power:

• • facial gestures

  • posture and what your body is saying. Whether you like it or not, your body speaks your truth! It’s all we have to best communicate.

• That wonderful thing called ‘passion’:

  • do you have trouble conveying emotion, passion when called for?

  • do you conduct to ‘invite’ (or invoke) those kinds of experiences?

• The ‘fun factor’ – it is sometimes the only thing holding a rehearsal together or keeping your players coming to your rehearsals.

5. Conducting

• Inadequate baton technique. The most basic aspect of the orchestra’s efficiency in playing under a conductor is the ability to read the beat in every measure. ‘Malko’ said:
  “the orchestra has the right to only one downbeat per measure”.
  This statement is the basis for all clarity in conducting.

• What I believe – your primary function with available gestures include:

  • getting the tempi right. The use of a metronome.

  • cueing key entrances, soloists, sections, cymbal crashes

  • communicating the style of the music

  • communicating the balances (relative dynamics).

  • engaging the players (and the audience) emotionally.

  • directing the listener’s ear to the main line.

  • shaping the phrases (and bringing the music to life).

• Other considerations:

  • the preparatory – it prepares the breath

  • ictus

  • rebound – it tells the story

  • active and passive gestures

  • use of left hand

6. Final thoughts

Little, if any, of this ‘checklist’ is original material.

Attend rehearsals of as many noted conductors as possible and borrow their effective strategies and techniques, as long as it allows you to ‘be yourself’.

The greatest self-teaching/personal device continues to be the video and audio recorder. Now that your mobile or tablet/iPad can do all of these things, you have no excuse!