# Conducting



## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Maybe there should be a sub-forum about conducting?

Anyway Ive recentrly started to conduct small groups at school, and am talking to various conductors about lessons.

Anyone else conduct on here? any tips?

Thanks


----------



## PostMinimalist (May 14, 2008)

Oh yes!
Ha ha!


----------



## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

emiellucifuge said:


> Maybe there should be a sub-forum about conducting?
> 
> Anyway Ive recentrly started to conduct small groups at school, and am talking to various conductors about lessons.
> 
> ...


Step #1 - Research the composition you're conducting and know more about then any of the orchestra members. After all, it's the conductors job to understand the music better than anyone.

Step #2 - Learn all the techniques you can about being a conductor --- baton positions, hand cues, etc.

Step #3 - Keep a tight leash on the orchestra. Orchestras have a tendency to get out-of-hand. It's your job to keep them inline.

Good luck.


----------



## kg4fxg (May 24, 2009)

*Read, Read, Read,*

I have read several good books from amazon that have helped. There are several good ones around conducting technique and reading a score. The best advise is to find a mentor. MI is correct, you have to know the score to well as if you wrote it yourself. Then there is understanding orchestration which is hard to learn. I would also look into any biographies of conductors or interviews to see what advice they could offer.

I have the most respect for conductors, like a composer it is not something you do over night.


----------



## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Ah yes I think I have that little red book, but mine is in green


----------



## kg4fxg (May 24, 2009)

*Sherlock Holmes*

Yes, mine is actually green too. Amazing how many of these books I get off Amazon used for just pennies. Of course you still pay the 3.99 shipping but it ends up cheaper than the new price with free shipping.

I don't actually conduct so my hats off to you. My interest is only in understanding further what goes on during a symphony. Besides studying the score, orchestration, of course one must understand how the conductor communicates to the players.

There is so much to study or chew on as I call it. The piece, the composer, then the composers biography. The score of course. Then you have to read what influenced the composer, in the Romantic Period it could have been Goethe, Caravaggio, Byron, Voltaire and so on. You have to get into the art and literature that influenced the composer.

You almost become a Sherlock Holmes. Now you have one piece or score to study and about six months of work to do.

How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? Sherlock Holmes.


----------



## World Violist (May 31, 2007)

I have been very interested in conducting for a good bit over a year now. I've been listening to recordings and watching videos, reading biographies of the composers I like, etc. I find Youtube to be absolutely invaluable for seeing conductors in action. You can see clips of everyone from Bernstein and Tennstedt to Barbirolli and Reiner and even Furtwangler and Toscanini (and many many more) for no price. And to connect those motions with the music that is being made is really spectacular. It's even more amazing when you can find rehearsal videos. There are plenty of videos of Celibidache and Bernstein rehearsing, and those are incredible. They seem to draw out of the players what they want with their words.

Anyway, I agree completely with everything said above. Being a conductor can't possibly be an easy thing, just as being any other kind of musician can't be easy.


----------



## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

kg4fxg said:


> MI is correct, you have to know the score to well as if you wrote it yourself. Then there is understanding orchestration which is hard to learn. I would also look into any biographies of conductors or interviews to see what advice they could offer.


Understanding the score and the orchestration goes along with researching the music, which is apart of my three step conductor philosophy I wrote above.


----------



## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

so do you conduct MI?


----------



## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

emiellucifuge said:


> so do you conduct MI?


Nope and I don't have any interest in it either. I respect conductors and what they do. I wouldn't want to play in an orchestra either as much as I love classical music, I don't have any desire to play it. I'm an improvising musician, so I like a lot of flexibility.


----------



## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

If you're conducting at school level, the approach of Szell or Toscannini mightn't be much help...

Here are some practical tips from an (amateur) orchestral musician.

Start as you mean to go on. Don't waste time in rehearsals. When you want to start from a certain place in a piece, get the players used to the fact you will tell them where to start, and begin quickly. How? You want to rehearse from 15 bars before figure 'B'.
You say, "I want woodwind and horns, before B, counting one, two, three four....... fourteen, fifteen". This way they can count their bars along with you. Then you only wait a few seconds before starting. They'll get used to it.
DON'T be, as I've experienced, a conductor who counts first; "One, two three four five...... thirteen, fourteen after 'D' ". The players sit around while you count, then you stand around while the orchestra counts what you just did. Waste of time.

Also, especially with kids, don't hesitate to take passages at half speed. Or, even one note at a time, on the stick, especially if there are tricky intervals or intonation problems on a specific note.
If a passage is giving the orchestra trouble, do it DIFFERENTLY. Just playing the same passage five times at concert speed won't make it any better. Sometimes, the same technique you'd use as an individual player practising your part can work with a larger group. It's not ideal, but then a lot of kids aren't practising at home anyway...

You probably know all this already!
cheers,
Graeme


----------



## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

Also, again to save time with kids (not the approach you'd take with the VPO) give the tempo indication as you're about to start the passage. Say aloud, "one, two, three, four" in the right tempo, and move the stick on the upbeat. If it's a fast passage, count two bars in. This way, everyone knows the tempo, and you won't waste the first run through of every passage just getting the speed right.
After all, apart from the beginning of the movement, players will already know the tempo while the piece is playing; it's only in rehearsal you have to play from 'E' to 'F' in isolation. There's no need to make the players have to pick up the tempo from your upbeat every single time. Especially if you move around the music in rehearsal; some work ont he slow movement, then working on the adagio. Give them the tempo, then you can work on the music itself.
(Also, it minimises the chance of you starting off at the wrong tempo yourself...)
cheers,
Graeme


----------



## Yosser (May 29, 2009)

Mirror Image said:


> Nope and I don't have any interest in it either. I respect conductors and what they do. I wouldn't want to play in an orchestra either as much as I love classical music.


I'd even go a step further. I've played in an orchestra but there's no way I'd want to play in an orchestra conducted by me!


----------



## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

Yosser said:


> I'd even go a step further. I've played in an orchestra but there's no way I'd want to play in an orchestra conducted by me!


I wouldn't want to be in an orchestra with me conducting either!  I'm a pretty obsessive person, so I image the orchestra would get tired of this very quickly. One minute I'm pretty nice, then the next minute I can really be a (insert derogatory word here).


----------

