# Are you an armchair conductor?



## Tapkaara (Apr 18, 2006)

I sure am! It's quite therepeutic, actually...


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## andruini (Apr 14, 2009)

Of course. No other way to listen to music, imo.


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## World Violist (May 31, 2007)

If you mean conducting while listening--all the time.


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## Mikey350D (Mar 6, 2009)

Absolutely!
My crew at work is threatening to buy me a baton.
Many times, on night shift, they have walked by my office and caught me in the throes of conducting. 
Still trying to master one-armed conducting while driving.


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## ladyrebecca (Mar 19, 2009)

I'm not only an armchair conductor but a train conductor (not to be confused with the real kind!), a bus conductor, a walking conductor, etc. etc.!


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## Tapkaara (Apr 18, 2006)

andruini said:


> Of course. No other way to listen to music, imo.


I SOOOO agree!


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## Edmond-Dantes (Mar 20, 2009)

Tapkaara said:


> I SOOOO agree!


DEFINITLY agree! I'm always annoying my friends and family that way. LOL They don't seem to _feel_ the music like those on this forum do. They don't get what I hear really...


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## World Violist (May 31, 2007)

Edmond-Dantes said:


> DEFINITLY agree! I'm always annoying my friends and family that way. LOL They don't seem to _feel_ the music like those on this forum do. They don't get what I hear really...


Haha nobody understands the way I feel music either. Heck, most people I know see a conductor as not even really a musician, just that lunatic who waves his arms in front of an orchestra. There is so much more to my music than that. It's irritating to talk to people like that.

Music gets a physical response from me much of the time. I can't count how many times I've been walking around listening to music and then all of a sudden felt this incredible urge to stomp my foot on the next down-beat. Haha. I love it. I bet half the people who watch me listen to music think I have Turret's or something! (maybe not THAT bad, but still...)


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

I enjoy fake conducting. I mean I do it without even realizing I'm doing it. I feel such a deep connection with music that I can't help not to do it. I'm not worried about if people think I'm crazy. They should already know I am by now anyway!


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## Edmond-Dantes (Mar 20, 2009)

World Violist said:


> Haha nobody understands the way I feel music either. Heck, most people I know see a conductor as not even really a musician, just that lunatic who waves his arms in front of an orchestra. There is so much more to my music than that. It's irritating to talk to people like that.
> 
> Music gets a physical response from me much of the time. I can't count how many times I've been walking around listening to music and then all of a sudden felt this incredible urge to stomp my foot on the next down-beat. Haha. I love it. I bet half the people who watch me listen to music think I have Turret's or something! (maybe not THAT bad, but still...)


LOL. Exactly. I feel it so much that I had to do a lot of reading on conducting just so I actually LOOK like I'm conducting. Before I just sort of moved my hand with the beat, but I looked a bit like a was handicapped. ^^;;

Now I can conduct like a pro.  (Just joking)


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## handlebar (Mar 19, 2009)

Yes indeed!!!

Jim


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## JoeGreen (Nov 17, 2008)

even better to conduct with the score in front of you. That way you can accurately pretend to enter in the imaginary orchestral musicians that are in front of you.


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## Tapkaara (Apr 18, 2006)

OK, does anyone use a baton...I do.


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## JoeGreen (Nov 17, 2008)

does a pencil or pen count?


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## Edmond-Dantes (Mar 20, 2009)

Yeah, I haven't gotten bad enough to get a baton yet. =D


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## Tapkaara (Apr 18, 2006)

JoeGreen said:


> does a pencil or pen count?


Sure it counts, but a baton is better.


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## nickgray (Sep 28, 2008)

Yeah, I do that most of the time, can't help it  Also I'm quite proficient at playing air guitar, a bit air piano and I just love tapping my foot or hand (or both) to the music all the time, sometimes doing strange polyrhythmic figures


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## PostMinimalist (May 14, 2008)

Oh man! I have to say yes to this one. I got hooked in an odd way though. I actually do some real conducting but here's what happened. I was going to do a week of recording with the Slovak Philharmonic and the pieces were quite tricky and I hadn't conducted for a long time so I was a bit nervous. So I made a fake orchestra on several bits of paper, basses and cellos to the right woodwind in the middle etc. with drawings of the players and pinned them to the walls in my office and practiced the pieces till I was comfortable. One time when I had gone over these pieces I put on Brahms 1st and went through the paces. What can I say? It was better than the real thing! No wrong notes to correct, perfect ballance, what phrasing! All this and no one to say 'who does that jerk think he is?' What more could a conductor ask for?
Armchair? Well since the paper orchestra has long since gone that's as far as it goes.
FC


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## bassClef (Oct 29, 2006)

So I'm not the only one? What a relief!


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## Rasa (Apr 23, 2009)

Hah, definitely not. Wether for fun, or to practice for the night's repetition, I do it regularly.


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## Herzeleide (Feb 25, 2008)

I enjoy actual conducting.


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## David C Coleman (Nov 23, 2007)

No I don't conduct sitting down, I have to stand up in front of the ahem!.. speakers and pretend I am the best conductor that's ever lived!..


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## PostMinimalist (May 14, 2008)

And for that hour of Bruckner 4 you are!!


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Not only while listening to music. If I'm going back from philharmony, and I enjoyed the concert I'm always conducting on the street, as I walk home.


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## Tapkaara (Apr 18, 2006)

David C Coleman said:


> No I don't conduct sitting down, I have to stand up in front of the ahem!.. speakers and pretend I am the best conductor that's ever lived!..


That makes two of us. I just have to make sure the windows are closed...don't want the neighbors to call the mental hospital.


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## handlebar (Mar 19, 2009)

I have only conducted once for real when in class many years ago. I don't use the batons i have anymore but have fond memories of Schiller's book on conducting while trying it out myself. There is so much more science to conducting than the average music lover knows.

Jim


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## JoeGreen (Nov 17, 2008)

Tapkaara said:


> That makes two of us. I just have to make sure the windows are closed...don't want the neighbors to call the mental hospital.


Same here, and I must admit it's a nice aerobic workout too. Can't forget the health benefits!


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## David C Coleman (Nov 23, 2007)

post-minimalist said:


> And for that hour of Bruckner 4 you are!!


HaHa! well for Bruckner and Mahler - true! it can get a bit tiring!. But the music is so involving one tends to forget about it...


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## Tapkaara (Apr 18, 2006)

JoeGreen said:


> Same here, and I must admit it's a nice aerobic workout too. Can't forget the health benefits!


I once read something that said all the great conductors lived to be fairly old...this is attributed to the aerobic exercise of conducting. See kids, it's good for you!


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## ENA (Apr 25, 2009)

Yeah, everytime i listen to a peice it starts with a tap of a foot and progresses. Also i like sitting in concerts(while i control myself...most of the time) watching others its nice to see someone else who feels the music and to watch the same progreesion happen to them.


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## Edmond-Dantes (Mar 20, 2009)

*Is armchair conducting as we speak to Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde*

It's an amazing feeling... just loosing yourself to the music and letting all your troubles melt away.


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## marval (Oct 29, 2007)

Well not very often, but now that I realise it is good exercise it will be more often. I need to loosen up my stiff arms and hands, this will be an enjoyable way to do it.


Margaret


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

Tapkaara said:


> I once read something that said all the great conductors lived to be fairly old...this is attributed to the aerobic exercise of conducting. See kids, it's good for you!


exceptions exist.

I have a book (received it as a gift) on this thread topic:










Fortunately, my wife Hot_town/Philly has had course-work in conducting, so she can help me out with the trickier things that lie outside the coverage of this book, like unconventional time-signatures and cross-rhythms.

Unsurprisingly, I also have a copy of "Wagner on Conducting." Ernest Newman pretty much said that it should be required reading for every would-be conductor of Wagner's music...


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## Tapkaara (Apr 18, 2006)

Chi_town/Philly said:


> exceptions exist.
> 
> I have a book (received it as a gift) on this thread topic:
> 
> ...


There are always exceptions to the rules.


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## Padawan (Aug 27, 2009)

Yep. I'm worried when I start attending symphonies this fall that I won't remember not to wave my arms!


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## Jaime77 (Jun 29, 2009)

I used to be but not much anymore. When I was big into Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov I just loved to. Not sitting though, standing up and all. I am going to learn some conducting technique so I can practice with it too


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## Cortision (Aug 4, 2009)

I am the world's worst armchair conductor. I sometimes get overexcited and wear myself out in the process. Dvorak's 7th is exhausting. Those professional conductors that have a very physical style must be very fit to conduct a whole concert without tiring!


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## Ingwe (Nov 27, 2008)

Yes. Shamelessly, yes.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

YES I AM!!

Both armchair and also real conductor and so I am lucky enough to use a baton wherever or who (or not) I am conducting!


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Cortision said:


> I am the world's worst armchair conductor. I sometimes get overexcited and wear myself out in the process. Dvorak's 7th is exhausting. Those professional conductors that have a very physical style must be very fit to conduct a whole concert without tiring!


I agree, I have armchair conducted Dvoraks 7th a hundred times, it really wears you out


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