This blog is devoted to my wind band recording library, something I have been amassing for the past 30 years. Today, though, I wanted to talk about a presentation I am developing for 2023. In my conducting classes at TAMUCC, I start each semester asking the question, "What is a conductor?" The students in front of me are seasoned music majors, so they say "a leader" or describe the duties of the job: cuing, time keeping, dynamics. Then I prod further. But what does it mean to conduct? They rarely answer beyond technical demands. So I launch into my thoughts...
The most obvious answer to the first question is a leader. This is one of the first definitions you will find in a dictionary. But certainly there is more to it than that, right? Why the word conductor? And where else do we use that term? So I ask the students: If I were to go to the student center and ask a random student what they think of when they hear the word "conductor," how do you think they would reply? Almost always, someone says "a train conductor." So how does what we do compare to a train conductor? This question is a tricky one. A particularly thoughtful student might answer, "A train conductor drives the train from one place to another." What are the one place and the other, I ask. "They deliver the music to the audience." I start with this narrative to illustrate my developing philosophy, one I must develop into said presentation this fall. Conductors are not delivering music to the audience. Instead, we are delivering the music to the performers. The performers are our communicators. Think of it this way: score study informs the conductor's interpretation of the music. Hours of rigorous work develops an indelible aural picture of the music, the intent of the composer. The conductor is now on their island, alone, ready to spread the joy of the music. That is when the players enter. They are across the vast sea, unaware of the conductor's interpretation, the composer's intent. They (hopefully) know their parts but may not be aware of how those parts fit into the whole. And even if they do, they will not know the score in the same way the conductor does. So the conductor takes the musical interpretation and delivers it - conducts it - to the players. It is not a matter of waving arms at the players. That is one method of conducting music. But there is another definition of "conductor" that changed my view of the art. And that will be the subject of my next post.
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AuthorBrian Shelton, DOB Archives
July 2022
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