Conducting Principles, Patterns, & Exercises

SCS Choirs

Micah Hunter

Preface

Conducting is an art with many reputations. Some see conducting as a job for musicians who couldn’t “make it” as performers. Some see conductors as demigods; infallible and omniscient in all things artistic. To some, the conductor is to be feared. To others, he is to be scorned. The fact of the matter is that conductors are people, as different from each other as the members of any other group. For this reason, each of the reputations above is undoubtedly true somewhere, in some ensemble, at any given time.

As you will discover in the first chapter of this primer, I do not fall into any of the extreme categories listed above. It is from a far more moderate position that I present you with this short introduction to the art and discipline of conducting. As you make your way through this course, please do not let the brevity of presentation lull you into the security of skimming its contents. I encourage you to actually take the time to complete each exercise in full, even when the object seems simple.

Before beginning this course, you should decide whether or not you will be using a baton. In general, most conductors of bands and orchestras use batons while most choral conductors do not. In reality, it does not matter what type of group you conduct. What matters is how you can communicate most effectively with your ensemble. I am primarily a choral conductor, and I conduct both with and without a baton. In my opinion, it is best for a student conductor to begin by using a baton, because it may well be expected in some ensemble situations. The use of a baton as a beginning conductor also encourages hand independence, which will be stressed in Chapter 3: Expression & Articulation. It also removes the concern of right hand shape for the beginning conductor.

Batons generally come in lengths of 12, 14, and 16 inches, though much longer batons are available. Handles come in plastic, cork, and a variety of hardwoods. Shafts can be wood, plastic, or fiberglass, and any variety of colors, though usually white. Some batons are balanced, so that a minimum amount of effort is required to control the tip of the baton. Some batons are little more than sticks. If you choose to use a baton, spend some time shopping and decide what length and color look best with your body. Also try conducting a variety of tempos, styles, dynamics, and articulations to find the baton that best responds to your touch. Keep in mind that the tip of the baton is the most important part from your ensemble’s point of view. If the tip of the baton shakes when you conduct a heavy marcato, or if it is hard to control at legato pianissimo, then it will present issues for your ensemble.

If you want to invest in a high-quality, well-balanced baton, Mollard is an excellent brand to investigate. Mollard shafts are wood, and extremely light. The downfall to this is that they will break if treated inappropriately. If you are in need of something to withstand the rigors of conducting a middle school or high school band in which you may be prone to throwing your baton at one or more students on a daily basis, you will want to explore the fiberglass selection available at most music stores. King David is a good “middle of the road” brand which makes both balanced and unbalanced batons in both wood and fiberglass.

Chapter 1: Philosophy

The principles of conducting are many, and there are as many opinions regarding techniques and philosophies of conducting as there are conductors to espouse them. In this short introduction to conducting, I will try to avoid peripheral issues that are controversial. Unfortunately, there is very little philosophically on which all conductors agree. Therefore, the basic principles of conducting that I offer you all stem from my core beliefs about the art and discipline of conducting, outlined below.

Conducting is both an art and a discipline. Conductors are capable of tremendous expressivity and communication best resulting from hours of study and practice.
Conducting is teaching. At his best, each conductor uses a consistent language of gesture, posture, and expression to communicate and participate with his ensemble.
Conducting is musically universal. There is no fundamental difference between the conducting of vocal or instrumental ensembles, though fine points of communication must be observed in different settings.
Conducting is intimate. The elitist wall of “professional separation” between many conductors and their ensembles is a hindrance to the symbiotic communication and relationship that is necessary for the most artistic and personally meaningful results. The intimacy and emotional honesty between conductor and ensemble directly affects the artistic quality of their music making, and by extension affects the lives of the conductor, individual musicians, and audience members for whom they perform.

Music is a Divine Gift. The primary purpose of music is the glorification of its Creator, the Almighty God. Music can move people in a manner unlike any other art. It is the only earthly art which the Bible promises will exist in Heaven, and by extension, the only heavenly art to be granted to mankind. Since conductors are charged with guiding the preparation and performance of ensemble music, they must understand and accept the responsibility of that position.

Exercise 1: Think about your own experience as an ensemble musician. What do you believe about the role of the conductor? Try to come up with at least three basic statements that are always true of a good conductor.

Chapter 2: Determining Tempo

Determining an appropriate tempo for the music you conduct is absolutely vital to teaching it successfully. In many cases, a tempo will be printed at the top of the score. This may or may not be trustworthy. If the tempo was written by the composer, it is probably close to the best performance tempo for the piece. However, it may be necessary to have a significantly different rehearsal tempo.

Pieces that are very slow tend to drag and get very tedious in rehearsal. It is often wise to rehearse these pieces slightly faster at first in order to maintain a healthy pace in rehearsal, as well as to maintain interest in the piece. Likewise, pieces that are very fast are likely to be impossible to play at performance tempo right away. There will undoubtedly be sloppy instrumental and vocal technique in the ensemble unless the piece is rehearsed slowly at first, with great attention to detail.

Tempos printed at the top of a score are not always trustworthy. If the piece is from before 1900, then any metronome marking has probably been added by an editor or arranger, and should be considered only a suggestion. Even when the original composer has marked a piece with an indicator such as allegro, andante, prestissimo, or langsam, there is a wide variety of tempo contained within the meaning of each word, and the conductor must consider carefully the character and playability of the piece at different tempos to determine the correct tempo for each situation.

Pieces from the Renaissance and Baroque often bore no tempo indications whatsoever in their original manuscripts. In these cases it is important to remember the concept of the Renaissance tactus. The tactus was the general universal pulse around which music was written. It is believed to have been originally related to the human heartbeat, and is generally considered to be between 60 and 75 beats per minute. This is not to say that all Renaissance music was the same tempo. Composers could alter the tempo of their music by changing the note values they used. In studying Renaissance music, it is important to determine what type of note is being used as the beat unit. If the semibreve, usually transcribed as a modern whole note, then consider the tactus as applying to the whole note. If the beat unit was the minim, usually transcribed as a modern half note, then consider the tactus as applying to the half note, just as in cut time.

Baroque music is more likely than Renaissance music to bear some kind of tempo indication. It is important to determine whether the primary influence of a Baroque piece was dance or song. Pieces with dance influences tend to be faster and more buoyant than pieces more closely related to songs or airs.

Editors and arrangers working in the first half of the 20th century tended to over-romanticize Renaissance and Baroque music. In older editions from this time, you will notice a lot of editorial dynamic markings and often very slow tempos. Modern scholarship has improved greatly with the discovery of various autograph scores and treatises on performance practice.

Exercise 2: Determine appropriate rehearsal and performance tempos (metronome markings) for the following pieces and give reasons for your choices.

Chapter 3: Basic Patterns

The basic patterns of conducting are largely agreed upon by conductors. It should be noted that the pattern indicated as 4/4 is really a 4-beat pattern. In other words, it will work for any meter containing four beats per measure, whether symmetrical like 4/4 and 12/8 or asymmetrical like 10/8, in which the beats differ in number of subdivisions, and thus total length of time. Likewise, the 3/4 pattern will work for any 3-beat meter, and the 2/4 and 6-beat patterns for 2-beat and 6-beat meters, respectively. The issue of asymmetrical meter will be addressed later.

Notice that each of the patterns outlined above is written around a horizontal plane on which each beat “bounces.” This horizontal plane is called the ictus. This is not a universally accepted concept, as is demonstrated by the Italian 6 pattern. It is a good idea to practice these patterns using a flat surface as a guide, touching it for each beat conducted. After you have solidified these patterns in your mind and muscular memory, you may find you wish to depart from the stricture of always touching the horizontal plane, for purposes of expression, cues, or musicality.

For now, try to keep the size of your pattern the same at all times. Your horizontal plane should be about the level of your elbow when your arm is hanging relaxed at your side. The top of your pattern should be at about shoulder height, and the width of your pattern should be about the width of your body, offset so that the left side of your pattern aligns with the center of your torso. For the purposes of the first exercises, use only your right hand.

Exercise 3: Conduct each pattern at 60, 90, and 120 beats per minute for three minutes at each tempo, using a metronome to guide you. Try to keep your pattern a uniform size throughout the exercise. This is an exercise in muscle memory and in endurance, which will probably be taxed if you do this exercise all at once. This exercise should take about 45 minutes. If you get tired, that is good. Conducting is a physical activity.

Chapter 4: Expression & Articulation

Conducting is of course quite worthless if employed only to do the job of a metronome. There are innumerable ways to conduct “with expression” but we will look only at those that are largely universal. We will examine the style and size of the conducting patterns, the use of the left hand, and use of facial expression.

The style of our conducting pattern can indicate any number of styles in which music is played. The conductor’s job then, is to identify the most appropriate style for the music he is conducting, and to reflect that style in his pattern. For instance, if the music is marked molto legato, then the pattern must be smooth, and absolutely not choppy. If the music is marcato, then the pattern must carry great weight and each beat must be heavy. Staccato music requires a separation between notes, and therefore must be reflected by a conducting pattern that indicates separation between its beats.

Dynamics are another key element of musical expression, and can be indicated very effectively by the size of the conductor’s pattern. In general, a smaller pattern size indicates a softer dynamic, while a larger pattern size indicates a louder dynamic. Likewise, crescendos and decrescendos can be communicated by gradually increasing or decreasing pattern size. The conductor must be careful not to change tempo when using pattern size as a dynamic indicator. The size of the conductor’s pattern affects the speed at which his hand must move to maintain the correct tempo. Young conductors are notorious for unintentionally altering tempo by the use of different pattern sizes.

The left hand may be used to indicate dynamic changes, whether gradual or subito, but the conductor must be able to maintain the right hand pattern independently of anything the left hand is doing. This is very difficult for some people, and young conductors must often practice hand independence for many hours before it becomes natural. In general, an ascending left hand indicates a crescendo, while a descending left hand indicates a decrescendo.

The position of the conductor’s hands communicates a great deal as well. While there are no universally accepted principles of hand position, the student should practice various hand positions in front of a mirror in order to see which positions communicate his ideas most comfortably and effectively.

Facial expression is one of the most effective means of communicating elements of musical style. It is also one of the least codified. Each person is different, and so each conductor must experiment with facial expressions that communicate his ideas most effectively. A good way to practice facial expressions (short of having your own ensemble) is to search out your full range of emotions, trying to express each one with a different facial expression. This can be an exhausting and frustrating activity, since your “angry face” may be indistinguishable from your “frustrated face.” However difficult this exercise may seem, it is necessary if you are to grow into an intimate conductor.

Exercise 4a: Choose six songs that have different styles, tempos, moods, and dynamic levels. Practice conducting to your recordings. Practice in front of a mirror. Use facial expression, pattern style and size, and left hand gestures to reflect what is going on the music. Feel free to experiment, but never let your right hand fall out of the appropriate pattern.

Exercise 4b: With your right hand conducting a 4-beat pattern at 60, 90, and 120 beats per minute, practice raising and lowering your left hand. Try to keep your left hand motions smooth, with no indication of the beat at all. Be sure to keep your right hand a consistent size and style.

Chapter 5: Mirroring

Now that you have spent hours training your left and right hands to hate each other, its time to bring them back together again. Mirroring is the practice of conducting a pattern with both hands at the same time. For some, this practice comes quite naturally. For others, it is seemingly impossible at first. In any case, Practice Makes Perfect!

For most students, the hardest part of mirroring is remembering to reverse the directions of horizontal beats for their left hand. For instance, in a 4-beat pattern, the right hand comes straight down, then across the body to the left then back across to the right, then back up to where it started. When mirroring, the left hand does not copy the right, it mirrors the right; down, across to the right, across to the left, and back up. The same is true of the 2-, 3-, and 6-beat patterns.

Mirroring is sometimes effective for very large ensembles, and sometimes is simply the best choice for a conductor for practical or musical reasons. Whatever the case, every conductor must be able to mirror as well as to conduct with independent hands.

Exercise 5: Repeat Exercise 3 while mirroring at all times.

Chapter 6: Cueing, Preparatory Beats, Cutoffs, & Fermatas

Cueing is one of the most important jobs of a conductor. Cueing is especially important in very difficult polyphonic musical textures, or when difficult meters make counting especially difficult. Choirs are also unique in their need for cues in performance because they so often perform without music.

Cues indicate to a person or section when and how to begin playing or singing. They are especially necessary after a musician or section has had a long period of rest during which they are likely to have lost track of their place in the music. Cues are generally given the beat before an entrance, as this gives the musician time to react. Cueing the beat before an entrance also allows the conductor an entire beat to communicate the style, dynamic, and articulation of the entrance. If the entrance occurs on the fraction of a beat rather than directly on the beat, it is still usually preferable to cue the entire beat before. In some cases, such as very slow tempos, this may be redundant, and may be more than the musician needs. In this case, cueing the beat of the entrance may be sufficient. In this chapter, we will examine the three primary types of cues; the right hand cue, the left hand cue, and the head cue.

The right hand cue is a beat directed with the right hand, in the appropriate tempo, dynamic, and style, at the person or section about to enter. The gesture may depart from the pattern, but only for the length of time necessary for the cue.

The left hand cue is a beat directed with the left hand, in the appropriate tempo, dynamic, and style, at the person or section about to enter. The left hand cue should not disrupt the pattern of the right hand.