How to conduct choirs and orchestras

1. An introduction to conducting: Hi, I'm Ben, and I'm going to teach you everything I know about conducting in this class. So let me tell you a little bit about my background. I studied music at the University of Oxford here in the UK, and I now live and work in London conducting choirs, playing piano, teaching piano, and working with various different ensembles. So say you're just starting out conducting a new group. You're going to find this class useful. We're going to talk about things like different conducting beat patterns and how to use gestures to get the most out of your singers. We're going to talk about how to plan rehearsals effectively so that your singers can benefit really well. Then we're going to just talk a little bit about warming up and the importance of that in singing. Singing like any sport or activity, needs to have good, generous vocal and physical warm-up. We're going to talk about a little bit the history of conducting and why. I think conducting is an important skill and one that you might want to consider learning. So I hope you might join me on this journey and we're going to talk about how to conduct. 2. The history of conducting: Let's consider the history and the purpose of conducting. We've all seen those conductors waving around the big white baton, sort of hoping for the best and looking very virtuosic and all of that. But actually, if you look back to the 17th century, the origins of conducting came with a conductor called Lily, who used to stand at the front of his ensemble, bashing a great big stick to keep time acting as a metronome. Now, this slightly unfortunate thing is he one day managed to poke his, poke himself in the foot and he came to a rather nasty end. It he gave himself gangrene. So anyway, after that, conducting became a slightly more professional skill. And you see now conductors using a baton. Now the whole question of whether to use a baton is a very personal one. And my take on it is if you're working with a choir, and that is probably the main focus here. You don't need to use a baton. It's not necessary if you're conducting a big Symphony Orchestra and you've got to get the attention of the bassoon, say at the back of your rehearsal or your concerts, then baton is probably worth using, but it's not essential that all my training has been quite traditional. I'm left-handed and I was once told as a left hand or you can't become a conductor of quires will never make it. Well, I had to say, I've proven them wrong. And I am a conductor. And the whole left-hand and right-hand thing is no longer of any consequences, no matter whether you're left-handed or right-handed, you can establish yourself a really successful career. So the thing about the baton is if you have your orchestral players in front of you, they can see your beat more effectively in their peripheral vision. And that's really important to keep time. I mean, our main, I suppose our purpose as conductors is to, our main purpose is to effectively beat time. And that's what we want to be. That's our, that's our primary goal, and that's what we're going to look to achieve as we move forward in this class. So don't be like Lily. Let's take a more modern approach as we continue learning about to conduct it. 3. Conducting gestures: Let's think a little bit about other gestures that you might use when you're conducting to convey things like changes in dynamic, getting louder and getting quieter. When conducted first start out, they conduct everything. They mirror everything 12341, between the hands like this, which is fine when you're when you're getting started. But as you get further down the line, you want to demonstrate things like one beat being louder than the other. Let me give an example. So I'm conducting in for the pattern that we've just learned. If I'm conducting in four, and I want the fourth beat to be louder. So I want the singular golden law and give it more attack on that fourth beat. Let me show you what I might do. 1234. I put more emphasis on to that fourth beats. And the key is that you're preparing before you get to the fourth beat. What doesn't work is to go 1234, because this thing is going to fall over. Now runaway and they might never work with you again. I'm sure they will, but anyway, let me show you 1234. You need to end the third beep. Be thinking about that emphasis. Excuse me. So that's something to be practicing. If you want particular beats in the bar, say the second beats to be stronger than think before you get to the second beat about demonstrating that emphasis. Another thing to stop this, what we call mirror conducting, where both hands do the same thing, is to try. A really handy gesture is a crescendo, and then a diminuendo. Let me demonstrate what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna crescendo for four beats, get louder, and then I'm going to get quieter for four beats. 12, three. And Crescendo 234, diminuendo 234, crescendo, diminuendo 23. So I'm simply moving my other hand, my non beating hand, forward and upwards to encourage the singer and then back and down, you'll notice I'm mainly referring to singers and I think that is, that's the majority of my work working with, with singers. You find that a similar thing will work with orchestral players as well. With orchestral players, I was taught a tip once. If you want a sudden quietness to actually step, step away from the players, get out of their peripheral vision a bit and you'll find that they'll react by playing more quietly. Be, be very careful about trying to push the sound down too much, especially with singers, because you'll find that the quality of the sound will not be quietly wants it more upwards and then gently, gently coming away can work really well. Why don't we practice that together? So let's try four beats of getting louder and then four of getting quieter. Here we go. So what? Getting louder and getting quieter to three and again getting louder. 234, getting quieter to three. Again, getting louder, getting quieter to three. Now, it might take you a bit of a while to get the different parts of the brain working. It's almost the same as patting your head, rubbing your tummy, then rubbing ahead. Pat is that connection but start slowly. Practice a slow the beat down if you need to establish those crescendos and diminuendo. But as you take your conducting past the stage of mirroring, it's really important to start to establish the independence of the hands. 4. The beat patterns : So let's talk about beat patterns. Now. We spend most of our time with our backs to the audience as a conductor, which has a really strange position to be in. Facing our ensemble, facing are quiet. So what I want to teach you firstly, a two basic beats patterns that we use with our arms and our hands. So effectively, the two beat patterns we're going to learn of a three-time, three main beats in a bar and 44 main beats. So the first thing to remember is I'm, I'm left-handed, so I'm going to demonstrate for you with my with my left hand a minute, I might turn around and show you that the side view. So if you have a piece that's in three-time, the first thing you want to do, the hand starts up high, it comes down, beats one, comes out from the body, B2, and then comes back up to the top as beat three. You might imagine this as a triangle. So down, out, up, It's a triangle with a sort of curving sides to it, if that makes sense. So let me show you that in motion. So 123-123-1231, 23. Why do you have a go at that with me? So you can either use your right hand and you could go down, out, up, down, out, up, or your left hand. I'll show you both. 12 312-312-3123. Good. Now, if you're not using a baton, I've seen some conductors use a pencil, which is fine. It gives you a little bit of clarity if you're not using anything, I suggest that you keep the fingers quite close together. If you start splaying the fingers like this, 12, you get lots of moving points and the beats becomes less clear. So keep your fingers together. And let's try that three-time against so 12312312. The imperative thing is that the second beat goes out because that's what a, a singer or a performer wants to see if the second beat doesn't go out and we don't know what's going on. So that's three times. Imagine a triangle with this sort of curves top for time. Let's have a look at that. So the key differences, we start by going down, but on for the second beat comes in to the body instead of going out. Yeah. Beat one, beat to beat three. Beat four. You might imagine for time as the same as three-time except the second beat goes in the opposite direction. Yeah, so I'll show you that again. So we're going down, we're going in, we're going out, up, down, in, out up, sort of like an upside down letter T. Again, the bottoms of the beat is slightly curved. It's not down, out, up, down. And in, out, up. Debt with a right hand. Down, in, out, up, down, in, out, up. Now, as I'm sure you know, there are many different types of Big Five. There's eight. I'm not going to worry about those because you'll find that most pieces you can manage with those two beats with the three, the three and the four. So really gain confidence in those two types of beats. Three time, four time. We'll touch on something a little bit later about when you come to prepare your scores, a quick visual cue to show you a three is drawing a triangle. And to show you a four is drawing a square in your score. If you want to have a quick clue about what you need to be conducting wire, then draw that in. Remember the purpose of this is to show, is to demonstrate for the singers the main timing of the bar so they can all sing together. That's our role is conducted to establish a dominant tempo that the performers can follow. 5. Warming up a choir: So warming up a quiet is so important. A lot of people don't really do it, but singing like any sport or activity in order that we don't damage ourselves when we do it from the vocal folds down to physically, we really do need to warm up. And I suggest that you consider warm ups in three categories when it comes to singing, breathing, physical, and vocal. I often start rehearsals with simply remembering to take a relaxed intake of breath. So let me demonstrate. I'll save this thing is right, can we start by taking a breath in for four and then out to a long sound. This has two purposes really. It focuses the singers on the activity ahead, but more than that, it really allows them to focus in on their breathing. And breathing is the life-force, the lifeblood of singing. So it's really important. So just try it with me so we'll take the breath in and then out to three. Keep going. And breathing in. Breathing out. 234. Yeah, well done. You find it has a really calming effect on the start of the rehearsal as well. Where people are flipping around looking for bits of music and they're all sort of thing. If you focus in on the breath, you get them really nice and focused and just listening and attentive. And it's just a good way of really encouraging that in terms of the physical things, you want to little things like shaking the arms out, plugged into my computer here. But normally, I don't want to be standing to demonstrate this. I'd say put your feet so you might want to try this. Put your feet shoulder width apart, stand up nice and tall with the shoulders open. Just get that nice scenery posture, often posture in singing, especially if a rehearsal is we sat down. We can forget to do little things like that. So remind about good posture. Shoulders open, feet, shoulder width apart, with the knees. You don't want that needs to be locked because then you get a very tense sound and knees just want to be slightly soft. These things are so important just to excuse me, just a reminder. Okay. Another thing you want to do is shaking the arms. I normally do HX of each arm, eight of each leg and then four and then two and then one. So 1, 2, 3 4 5 6 7, 8, 1 2 3 4 5 6, 7 leg 34567, left leg 34,567.34, 123. You get the idea. And then by number one, it's hilarious and they're all having a good time. That's the important thing to remember. Singers up there to have a good time. You are the ring leader of their joy. Okay, so the more positive and generous you can be. I think the more encouraging conducting has gone through a trend of conductors being particularly draconian, particularly demanding and quite rude. And in today's climate, choirs and orchestras don't take it anymore. I think the role of a conductor is to be a generous leader, to encourage the singers and to get the most out of the people in front of you. And your gestures and your etiquette, your rehearsals got to come from within you. I see a lot of young conductors mimicking other conductors saying, Oh, they did this gesture. And yet we've got to establish the basic beat patterns, of course, but you are the expert in the room. It's really important to remember that when you're conducting, because when you first start out, it can be quite a scary place to be. And they've got a lot of people up in front of you and you want to get the best out of them. 6. In conclusion : So in concluding this little introduction to choral conducting, some key points from me to remember. Remember you are the expert in the room. Often when conductors go out onto the scene, it can be with a certain amount of trepidation and trying to What do you get a lot of his people trying to please everybody in the group, in the quiet. And the thing is, while I think you've gotta be, kinda gotta be positive, you can't possibly be everybody's favorite conductor. It's just a improbability. For instance, when you make a video, some people are going to watch it, some people aren't. But being okay with that realization, I think is really, really important. So be aware, not everybody is going to get on with you, but remain upbeat, remain positive, and remain pragmatic. As in the points that you make. We are technicians were, were, were, were craftspeople of the quiet with shaping the music. So be confident in how you want the music to sound. I think I heard a trumpet player once say, all I require from a conductor is that they know what they want from the score. That is a central job. Know how you want the music to sound and insist in a positive way that it sounds like that. What you don't want is to be really changeable all the time. If you're constantly going on, maybe we should be quiet. He'll get a bit louder than that. You're going to lose people. Be confident with the vision that you have for the music. This is how I want it to sound. And let's strive for this and bring people with you, encourage them. Gone are the days of the Toscanini is the carry ons where it was fierce and shouting and tempeh. Playwrights, playwrights were more, I believe today that conducting is more about encouraging the best, drawing the best out of your singers, and using your skills to enhance their music-making to the best of their ability. I hope you found this useful. I've really enjoyed talking to you about conducting. And thanks for joining.