262 Par t 6:Arranging
But before you go out and face the world for your first honest-to-goodness con-
ducting session, you need to practice with other people. Gather a few of your
friends, and practice with the piece you’ll be conducting—even if it’s just a few
of the parts. Run through the piece a few times, and encourage your friends to
tell you what you could do to improve your conducting.
That first downbeat in front of a group of musicians can be daunting. Use your
friends to help you get over any shyness or fear, so that you appear confident
when you pick up the baton for real. (Remember—musicians, like wild dogs, can
smell fear.)The Least You Need to Know
◆Before your first rehearsal, make sure that every musician has his or her
own personal copy of the music.
◆Make sure you warm up and tune up the musicians before you start rehearsal.
◆To conduct a piece of music in 4/4, move your right hand from the up
position to the down position for the first beat, to the left for the second
beat, to the right for the third, and back to the up position for the fourth
beat. (That’s down, left, right, up—1, 2, 3, 4.)
◆Although you can let your preparatory beat establish the music’s tempo, it’s
probably better to count off the first measure (“One, two, ready, go”) to
help everyone feel the right beat.Exercise
Exercise 20-1
Put your favorite piece of music in your CD player, pick up a baton, and start
conducting!Coda
Thus ends this book—and your first exposure to basic music theory. I hope
you’ve found the information in these pages helpful, and that I’ve passed on
some of my love and enthusiasm for how music gets created.
The key thing to remember (aside from all the notes and rhythms and such) is
that these musical building blocks exist for you to use—however you like. We
may say that there are rules and conventions, but when it comes to creating
music, all the rules are made to be broken. What ultimately matters is how a
piece of music sounds—to you, and to your listeners.
Theory is good, but it’s just a guideline for what happens out in the real world.
If you want to use parallel fifths in your harmony, go ahead. If you want to flat a
fifth or resolve a turnaround to the ii chord instead of the I, do it. Some of the
greatest pieces of music have broken all sorts of rules. As long as it sounds good,
it’s all okay.