Interlude: Conducting
General Conducting Information.
A conductor is a musician whose instrument is a large group of singers or
instrumentalists. These musicians are guided either with a baton (also
called a stick) or by the conductor’s hands alone.
An audience only sees a very small part of what a conductor does,
because all they see is the conductor’s back. The audience doesn’t get to
see the frowns and grimaces, the stern looks and the kind, the oh-so-rare
smiles, and all the subtle nuances of body language and facial gesture.
The audience sees only the wilder gesticulations of the arms and part of
the body language.
Most of a conductor’s work in shaping a piece of music comes during
rehearsals, though a good conductor with a good group of musicians can
shape a piece of music spontaneously during a performance.
A conductor’s arm moves in a specific pattern which depends upon the
time signature of the piece being played. It’s usually the right hand and
arm which beat out this pattern while the left hand controls dynamics and
phrases and expressiveness. This is only a general rule.
The roles of a conductor change depending upon the level of musician in
the group. Let’s compare conductors at the two ends of the spectrum: the
professional symphony conductor and the elementary school music
teacher.
Imagine being responsible for forty students and their knowledge of their
instrument and music, fingerings, posture, embouchure, breathing,
reading music, and how to clean their instrument. These are just a few
things a musician should know. There are thousands of school teachers
who are responsible for teaching this every day of every school year, and
in addition to all that, they conduct these musicians in rehearsals and
concerts. Then of course there is grading, and faculty meetings, and hall
duty, and on and on. We should be in awe of them. If you know one,
thank him or her.
A professional orchestra conductor’s focus is more on his or her aural
vision of the piece, on the subtle nuances of the music. He or she is not
concerned with teaching the clarinets an alternate fingering for low F. A
professional conductor might be interested with a certain passage being