April 2015

How can a conductor learn to communicate more expressively with their gestures? The temptation when we first ask this question is to focus on what we’re doing with our hands, but I’m increasingly of the mind that these are a relatively small part of the process. Moreover, while we will certainly need to give attention to this part of it, if we start here, we won’t get any further.

This is the first of a series of posts looking in some detail at ways to increase the expressiveness of our conducting gestures. As the introduction, it will give an overview of the key elements, with subsequent articles exploring practical approaches we can take to develop each element.

I will try to avoid digging too far into the theoretical background that underlies the practical suggestions. Much as I enjoy a good bit of theorising - not least because my idea of a good theory is one which helps you operate better in the real world - that’s not my primary purpose here. But if at any point in this series, you find yourself thinking, ‘But, why?’, then you may find that Part 3 of my book on choral conducting, and particularly Chapter 10, helpful.

So, an observation that serves as a useful starting-point:

My previous two posts on this theme considered the scenario of a young, skilled musician taking on the role of director for the first time with an established choir, and, respectively, the challenges they are likely to face, and the advantages they are likely to wield. This last post in the series looks a bit wider to the dangers the category ‘young and talented’ presents to those it is applied to in general, as well as how this plays out the specific scenario of the new director.

Talent, as I have discussed before, is a mythological category. Our culture largely regards it as an inborn, innate quality, an assumption for which the literature on expertise can find no basis. Depth of skill emerges from the quantity and quality of practise someone undertakes; capacity follows rather than precedes the activity.

But, because the mythology of talent is so ubiquitous, people still use it to describe the facts of aptitude that they observe. Henry Kingsbury describes how it thus becomes a socially-negotiated label: those with authority bestow it upon junior members of that social world, giving them permission to consider themselves as particularly and specially endowed. This label can then prove a useful motivator for continued engagement: a child who is led to believe they have a special capacity for something is arguably less likely to give it up.

Okay, so this is a huge topic, but I am going to see if I can keep focused on the specific thoughts that prompted me to write on the subject. These ideas arise from a combination of having read some of the scholarly literature, plus the practical experience of working with real people. So, I’d say they’re quite well-informed and well-grounded, but not comprehensive. I reserve the right, as ever, to revise them as I continue to learn.

It is a reasonably common question that choral directors come up with to ask how to help a member of their group who can’t match pitch. They will typically have worked with them at an individual level at some length, and continued difficulties lead them to seek advice from their peers.

Now, it strikes me that ‘matching pitch’ in the sense of being able to sing back a note heard from the piano is quite an abstract skill. And that whilst it may look to be the simple building block upon which successful participation in a choir is to be built, I suspect it is actually a more sophisticated level of activity that relies experience gained in more ‘real-life’ and less ‘laboratory’ musical situations.