Conducting Experience 4 Reflection
Holst - First Suite in Eb, Movement I: Chaconne

On April 10 I conducted the first movement (Chaconne) of Holst’s First Suite in Eb. I must admit I didn’t feel a lot of progress was made between the last conducting experience and this one. Also, the piece I was conducting was not terribly challenging. Though there are always style issues to deal with, this movement is otherwise straightforward: no meter changes and no significant tempo changes. Nonetheless, the melody is repeated several times, but in very different ways each time, so it was my job to show these differences.

I felt that, overall, I prepared fairly well. I didn’t get lost, I made most of the cues that I felt were important, and I felt like I led the band (rather than following, even though I didn’t show a ton of stylistic differences). One thing I want to discuss. I occasionally went to a three-pattern that crossed to my left rather than my right (as if beats 1, 2, and 4 of a four-pattern). I know this isn’t technically “correct,” but I have had band directors do this regularly in the past, and it was never confusing. I like it, so that I can show more motion and a differing style a bit, so I don’t see what’s wrong with it. However, every time I do it, even once, somebody says something to me about it, as if I messed up, didn’t mean to, got confused, and so forth. I’m not sure what to do with that, if I should completely forget about that gesture and just never use it, or just become more confident and yet judicious in my use of it.

Otherwise, I’m still just struggling to show anything. I more or less know what I want to hear, what I want the band to sound like, but I have no idea how to convey that. This is obviously what I need the most work on, but it’s tough. Facial and gestural, I’m just struggling to do much other than concentrate on the music and look stone-faced. I will probably usually have fairly good success in conducting patterns and meters and so forth, but I will be struggling with this for awhile.

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