Transcripts
1. Introduction : Hi guys, I'm Ben and I'm a musician living and
working here in London. And I've put together a
course about conducting. My experience is
mainly with conducting quires here in London and
teaching piano and singing. And I thought it might
be useful to have a little course
guiding you through how you might take a rehearsal, how you might work with
your group of singers. Some of the more
advanced beat patterns, and also how you might go
about shaping the music. As conductors, we use gesture, we use our hands in order to allow us to get the most
out of our singers. And I wanted to share some of the experience and
some of the things that I've learned over the years with working with choirs. So thanks very much
for tuning in, and I hope you enjoy this series of videos on
learning how to conduct.
2. Beat patterns: So I'm going to
start with some of the basic beat patterns. As a conductor, it's
important to know the main beat patterns that you're going
to be conducting. And one of the most common
is called four-four, four beats in the
bar, four main beats. Now, when I was learning
how to conduct, I was told that
you're left-handed, you will never
become a conductor. Well, I've proven them
wrong and I'm left handed. The thing is it doesn't matter whether you're right
or left-handed. The importance is the shape
or that you, that you create. For our four beats in a bar. Essentially, I'll show
you in both hands. The first beat is down, the second beat
is into the body. The third beat is
out from the body. And the fourth beat
comes back up. I'll show you with my
right hand first, Down, in, out, up with my left hand. 1234. So let's put those
two hands together. So down, in, out, up, That's your basic pattern for conducting for, for now. Obviously, you don't
want to conduct every bar exactly in that way. 1234123, it will become quite static and your music won't
have that much drama. So later in this course, I'm going to talk about how
we emphasize certain beats. We make them slightly stronger. So that's our 44. So have a little
practice of that. I rather quite common
time signature is 34. And for this one we
go down, out, up, down, out, up, down, out, up. So kind of similar to
44 except we missed the part where we
come into the body. We just go down. Out. Up, down. Yeah. So let's try this. Let's try 1 bar of 44 and
then 1 bar of three for. Now, practice this with
whichever hand you prefer. I'm going to show
you with both hands. Okay, so we're gonna
do 1 bar of 44, then 1 bar of 34. Down, in, out, up,
down, out, up. Okay. I'm gonna do the same thing. I'm going to count out the
beats as we do it down. Forgive me. 1234123. So you need to practice
these big patterns until they're
completely intuitive and they feel really natural. Because what you
don't want to be as in a rehearsal thinking, does that forgo in,
does it go out? You just want to know that
as soon as you see your 4434 and the music, you're going to know
exactly how to do it. I'm going to introduce
one new one. In fact, two new beat patterns. The first is a two beats in a
bar, which is quite simple, sort of goes down, up, down, Up, down, up. It's important that the down goes out from the body at
the bottom of the beat. So we get out, up, down, up, down, up,
with the other hand. Down, up, down, up, down. You get the idea
because you don't want to be coming in because it might be misconstrued
as a four-four. If you'd come in, are they, is it four? Is it through? The most important thing to
remember is if you have a lot of players who are
long way back, they need absolute clarity in the beat to know which
beat of the bar. They're not going to
see every single beat. Sometimes they'll look up
just for specific moments. They might not have caught
your previous beat. So it's really important
you're precise. The last beat pattern I want to introduce is eight
beats in the bar. Now there's lots of different
ways of doing this. But the one that I was
taught and it seems to work for me is based on the 44. So to remind you of
the 44, down in, out, up, down, in, out, up. Now, that's four beats
to add an extra. To create eight
beats in the bar, we use the framework, but instead we sort of
go the opposite way. This will make more
sense when I show you. So we gave down out, in, in, out, out, in, in. Might be a bit
confusing at first, but the smaller beats
now that we're creating, to create the eight, go the opposite way to the four. So four is 1234 and we're wanting to add
an extra four beats. So we go down out, in, in, Out, out, in, up. This is because it has no
confusion then for the players. Because they won't
think you're moving to the second beat of the 44 because you're going in
the opposite direction. I'll show you in both hands. So we go down out, in, in, out, out, in. This one takes a bit
of getting used to. The other thing to consider is that in the four-four
and the 3A4, you can do a thing called
subdividing the beats a bit. So instead of just getting 1234, you can show a 1.2 and 3.4 if the tempo
slow and dictates it, have a practice of all those
different beat patterns. Don't worry too much
about the eight, but see if you can do that. The good way to practice is just to go through them
all one after the other, 2348 and just keep practicing
until they become fluid. There's no correct whether to
use the right or the left. It's what feels comfortable. Some people mirror with
both hands and others. Just use one hand and then the other for Dynamics and gestures, which we'll get
onto in a minute. Well done.
3. Shaping the music : We're going to talk
a bit about shaping. And in terms of shaping phrases, if we want to emphasize a
certain beat of the bar, say The Sopranos have something interesting
to do on beat four. Remember it's not actually the fourth beat that
we wanted to accent. I'll show you if
we would go 123. It's too late, isn't
it for the singer? What rather we
should do is 1234. And you see that exaggerated third beat will then
show the singer. Remember conducting
is about just being fraction ahead of the
sound you want to produce. So you want to be thinking
a couple of beats, a couple of bars, or head about what you're going to have to do. So emphasis on the fourth beat, 1234, shows you where
the emphasis comes. Practice that with me. So we're going to emphasize the, let's start by emphasizing
the first beat of the bar. Ready, so we're gonna go 123412. You see that bigger fourth beat then draws our attention
into the first beat. Let's try emphasizing
beats number 41234. Yeah, so exaggerated. The beat again draws us into the fourth beat naturally to be thinking a little bit
ahead as you're shaping. Another nice gesture
involves both hands. You can do this with
both hands as well. This is for sorts of emphasizing specific
moments in the music. So again, if you want to
emphasize the first beat, we might do this one too, 341. And both hands come under. And they're emphasizing
the beat using both hands together at
a moment like that. Can just add that little
bit of extra emphasis. And it might be if you've got
something like a tenuto or an accent in the music that you want to particularly draw route. So 1234, the emphasis there
was on the first beat. So the thing about
conducting is there's so many different styles
and 70 ways of doing it. But the thing to remember is you've got to
develop your own, your own method and have
confidence in that. So it's all very well
to be influenced by the great conductors
of the past. Carry on. Bernstein. Any, any of those big names, you know, the truth is, you've got to find it within yourself and your own character to be able to inspire the
musicians in front of you. And it's so funny because there's lots of
different styles of conducting and different ways
that people can draw out a successful
sound out of a group. There's not just one
method or methodology. So that's definitely worth
remembering as well.
4. Showing dynamics : The dynamics or the
musical, loud and soft. So the work of really important things
like showing crescendos and diminuendo is and also the specific dynamic levels
and really important. One trick I once learned was that to achieve a piano sound, we're just using the
movement of the wrist, done, done still the
same beat patterns, 234123 to achieve. So the mezzo-forte,
we using the elbow 1234123 to achieve a
forte or fortissimo, using the whole
shoulder, the whole arm, 1234, and getting
everything really engaged. So that's something
to be aware of. The smaller the gesture, the smaller the sound you
will, you will create. One of my bad habits is my
fingers become very splay. Something else wants
to talk to keep, especially if you're
conducting choirs, keep the fingers
closer together. It just looks a
little bit neater, I think, visually,
as a visual qc. Q. Q. Rather rather than having the fingers splayed
open like that. So yes, we're talking
dynamics there. So you've got your three levels. Wrist, elbow, shoulder
for more, for more sound. One other quite useful thing is gestures for crescendo
and diminuendo. Now, this is important
to practice it. Practice beating with your, with your beating hand with
that'd be left or right. Now with your other hand, you're going to do four beats of crescendo and four
beats a diminuendo. So I'll show you 12341234. So the hand rises too. 34 and then 4s, 2341 thing I quite like I don't use it often because I'm not sure it's
that helpful for singers, but using just a, just a preliminary
fingers in front of the mouth for
really quiet sound. I really like because you get sort of very hushed sound is gotta be careful
because sometimes if, if the gesture is a too small, you find the singers
deep breathe with you. So you've got to use enough
sort of impactful gesture, but not not, not, not so small that
it can't be seen. Have a practice that
with me We're going to beat for it with one hand. Then we're going
to do a crescendo, hand coming up and then a
diminuendo with the other hand, with the same hand
coming up. Ready? One, crescendo 34
and diminuendo 1234, crescendo 1234, diminuendo 1234. Magic. Very good. Now, it's all very well practicing
this in dry dock. Practice in front of a group, whoever it is, your,
your, your friends, your family, your image to be working with musicians and
getting small groups together. The more people you can conduct. The truth about conducting is that you only
really learn when you're actually doing
it with a group ensemble in front of you, you can practice
all these gestures till the cows come
home as it were. But actually you
need to do it with, with willing people
there in front of you. So that's something
to bear in mind.
5. Top tips for aspiring conductors : I was reflecting
the other day that one of the roles of
the conductor is actually to not be the
center of the show. Our role is to facilitate our musicians to be able
to perform together. One really good activity,
especially for choirs, is to get them to sing as a
group without a conductor. So important that choirs
listened to one another. So often, I'll get the
front raise turnaround. And to sing with the
background with the tenants, basses, sopranos,
altos altogether. Without a conductor, I might
bring them in and, you know, 34 go and just see if they're able to sustain a piece
and that togetherness, because it's unbelievable how much that those listening
skills are in are important. And the thing about conducting is it's not just
about the gesture, it's about how we act in rehearsals and the how
organized we are with getting through the musical
material and getting quiet ready for concerts
and performances. So that's definitely
something to bear in mind. In terms of rehearsal strategy. I think it's useful to know how you're going to
block out your time. It's all very well saying
a whole hour and thinking, I've got ages, you'd get to
all this music actually. Now I can go very quickly, especially when you're on the clock and you got
a concert coming up. So try to be organised. Look through your score
and consider where are the moments that you
think are going to cause the most problem
for the singers. Do that little bit
of advanced work. Also, another good
strategy I learned back at university was to mark
in all the vocal leads. So you know where the soprano is coming in with a tenors are the bases that organ or
history or whatever. No way will go where
you're going to look. So if you have to in
your room at home, in the past, I've
had on the wall, I've put right, violence, whatever oboes, choir basis. And then you can, you can, you can actually direct your, your beat at certain points. And it's just useful
having that sort of 3D spatial awareness of where your way or going to conduct and where your
gestures are going to be. Just little things like
that can be useful. Really silly point, well, 233 important strategies for conducting that
shouldn't be forgotten to start rehearsals on time. Even if there's nobody there. You got to start when you
said you'd start because otherwise the thing that
happens is week one, week it you just get
later and later. I know people are busy
and I worked with various groups and they're traveling from all over the place and it
can be difficult. But you've got to start. When you said you start. Even if there's nobody
there have enough music. It's simple things like making sure there are enough
schools because you don't want people leaning over
and the disruptions of not having enough music
have rehearsal pencils. It's important that people mark in some of the things
that you're saying. As a conductor, your
role is to improve the musicality of your group and to improve the
overall performance. Say if they're not taking on
board what you're saying, there's no point
in you're saying, I think you have I
think you've got to be quite warm and
encouraging, but also, I truly believe that
you need to demand out of the choir the very
best that they can deliver. And this is our row. We've got to try and
facilitate that. And to be truthful, there was sometimes
you just can't start on time because there's some logistical issue that's made it absolutely impossible. I've turned out once the
rehearsal venue was flooded, I think that was one of
my one of my favorites. So that put things on hold
for a rather long time. But all these things are
worth considering and have held me in good stead of a good friend of mine who was a cold scholar at
King's College, Cambridge and the
world-famous Chapel Choir that they had a system where if, if you are late for a rehearsal, then you got one letter of the word pints in
a pint of beer. Once you've managed to get all five letters
of the word pints, you had to buy the entire
choir a round of drinks. So I think of those
poor undergraduates who were training to become
better called singers, they soon learned
to turn up on time. And it's just simple
things like that. I think ourselves as well. We've got to be professional. We've got two
arriving good time. Always leave extra
time to get around sorts and especially concerts, and just be prepared
for the unforeseen.
6. In conclusion : Well, thank you so
much for joining me on this short intermediate
guide to conducting. I hope you found that useful. So we've covered some of the main beat patterns
that you're going to encounter as
you're conducting. We then went on to talk about dynamics and about
shaping the music. And a couple of rehearsal strategies and
things to keep you on track. Just remember the
more time you can get in front of you or ensemble
in front of your orchestra, in front of your choir, the better you are conducting
is going to become. You can be very prepared
and that is all very well. Sometimes you've
got to be in being the drama right in the center
of it and get on with it. I think it is something
to be said about dealing with the unforeseen as a conductor is
quite important and how we respond to that and those moments that
don't necessarily quite go as we want them
to end the concert. Keeping calm, carrying on. Even if it's not exactly
as you intended. It's been an absolute
pleasure talking with you and thank you very much
for watching my class. I hope to see you
again in the future.
Ben Lewis-Smith, Musician
