Conducting Experience 1 Reflection
Grainger - Ye Banks and Braes O'Bonnie Doon

I thought I knew the score relatively well. However, in all honesty, I was really struggling in coming up with a sound in my mind, a sound I wanted the band to sound like. Watching the video, quite frankly, didn’t show me much that I wasn’t already expecting: what little expression I tried to put into my conducting appeared as just that – very little. My stick technique, beat pattern, and so forth were all decent (though not without flaws). This should be assumed, though – the piece was, technically-speaking, pretty straight-forward, in a slow 6/8.

The first thing that I am going to attempt to fix for the next conducting experience is that I will spend more time with the score. I was not previously familiar with the last piece, and I struggled to create a mental sound for it (despite not having any trouble “singing” individual lines in my head). This next piece, however, (Elegy for a Young American), I have played and am fairly familiar with, though I have never conducted it or looked at a score for it. Thus, I have a bit of an advantage over the last time, in that I already have a pretty solid idea in my head of what I’d like it to sound like. Nonetheless, I intend to spend more time with the score, singing with it, getting a true of idea of what I want and how I am going to get that result from the ensemble.

Secondly, I am going to remember that the ensemble will play even if I am not beating time. Not that time is irrelevant, but I do not have to be restrained by the bounds of a 4-pattern nearly as much as I feel I do. I am a perfectionist, and I have obsessive-compulsive tendencies, and thus it is natural for me to attempt to provide a constant indication of the beat through a constant pattern. I have to fight this tendency, because the music is more important, and the music is not constrained by a specific meter or beat pattern. The music transcends all this (just as music existed long before notation or meters or beat patterns). In my practice, then, I will do my best to conduct the music, and let the beat happen (except for obvious places where the beat must be indicated, due to difficult passages or very rhythmic figures).

Lastly, I will take more command of the ensemble. From a conducting perspective, but also just from a general attitude and speaking perspective, I need to step up and own the music, own my rehearsal. This will include, again, better preparation, so I know more about the piece and the sorts of things that we may need to work on in the rehearsal. I will present myself and the music as if I believe I have something musical to share with the ensemble, not as if I am scared and know that I did not prepare well enough.

Overall, I think this conducting went okay. I have not conducted in front of an ensemble for a year and a half, so, for my first time “back on the podium,” I am fairly satisfied. Nonetheless, I should be capable of much more, and I hope to explore that possibility in the upcoming conducting opportunities.

[ home ]  [ philosophy ]  [ mused courses ]  [ pgp ]  [ intasc standards ]  [ links ]