TEACHING BY CONDUCTING
2.1 Composer-Conductor
Interaction
When a conductor opens a score, s/he
becomes aware of the efforts of a composer to portray in musical symbols the
inspiration, imagination and creativity that stimulated the composition. It is
the obligation of the conductor to make a sincere effort to understand and
protect the composer’s creations while bringing the strength of the conductor’s
own artistry to the realization of the composer’s intent. This is not always an
easy assignment. Many deceased composers left little in the way of information
that could be used to gain insight into their works. Others provide contrasting
information. It is only through direct contact with a composer that the
conductor can be confident in understanding artistic intent. So, with every
composer-conductor interaction, the conductor gains insight into the creative
mind that creates music. The insight is then used to revisit composers of the
past in an effort to form artistic collaboration with their music as well (McMurray,
2016) .
As much as direct contact would be a
fantastic idea for gleaning the original intentions of the composer, other
issues naturally emerge, possibly to the disservice of the conductor. One of
such problems is authorship: should the conductor who transforms the music hold
the rights or should the composer – whose creativity the conductor comes to
serve – retain all rights to his own work which the former has only come to
showcase? This subservient relationship between conductors and composers
becomes highly problematic when viewed from the postmodern perspective, which
questions the notion of authorial authority. The current incarnation of the
modern conductor remains narrowly conceived as a didactic relationship between
a subservient interpreter, his obedient followers, and an all-significant
composer (Bartleet, 2009) .
Shying away from ennobling the
conductor therefore suggests a low appreciation of the challenge s/he overcomes
in the bid to bring awesome pieces of music to a discerning audience while
working with a school of professional musicians. The real work begins by an
expenditure of quality time and effort digesting and transforming the score.
2.2 Score
Interpretation
Conductors study scores for a living (Woods, 2006) . Getting meaning out
of a score is challenging indeed when one considers the enormity of styles that
there are. From working early baroque music into their varied forms and the
myriad streams of thought that pervade art music today, to accompanying popular
musicians and performing seasonal events favoured by concert goers, there are
considerable challenges indeed. They range from opera to ballet, from theatre
to solos, and then unto cross-disciplinary concerts (Taddei, 2013) ! Therefore, it is
vital that the conductor has as much in-depth knowledge as possible of the
document which offers the best insight into the composer’s intention (Heron, 2004) . What a conductor
tries to do may have been best captured in the words of Hans von Bulow: “You
must have the score in your head, not your head in the score.” (Wade-Matthews & Thompson, 2011)
Knowledge of the score therefore, fuels
all aspects of a conductor’s responsibilities: teaching, leading, interpreting
and moving in rehearsal and performance. Of particular interest is the aspect
of interpretation. It is the responsibility of the conductor to digest all of
the information provided by the composer and then form a “point of view.” The
point of view engendered by the collaboration between the composer and the
conductor (or the conductor and his/her research) to realize the inspiration of
the music (McMurray, 2016) may be as broad as the very multiple
elements of music itself.
To understand the principal themes and
their functions, a conductor begins by looking at the form, whether they are
regular or irregular. S/he then attempts to make a meaning out of the melody
which may be based upon a short motif, such as the opening of Beethoven’s
“Symphony No. 5,” or organized around leitmotifs such as in Wagner’s “Tristan
und Isolde,” or move from one fully developed melody to the next, as in
Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake”. The conductor is aware of how the harmonic tension
relate to elements such as tone quality, tempo and rubato. If the rhythm flows
with serenity, pleasantly entertaining, or grip the audience with primitive
barbarity, a conductor makes a note of that too. He is not unaware of dynamics
as well as the subtle gradations required to maintain vitality should a section
be sustained at a particular intensity. There is also consideration for the
combination of instruments used in the piece (orchestration) along with the
registers employed for each (tessitura). Their overall aural consequence
(timbre) is key to the performance, which may be rich or transparent, lithe or
robust.
Equally important to a conductor is the
stylistic convention which obtains in that historical period as is observable
in the work. This may be novel or shocking. An example is the humor or harmonic
twists in the works of Haydn. Whether a piece is representative of its period
is not necessarily more important than the composer’s personal conflicts or
political context. For instance, “The Planets,” “Hammersmith,” and “Suite No. 1
in E flat” are works by Gustav Holst that display a considerable range of style
by comparison to each other.
In the midst of searching for these
features, a conductor must decide if there is one clear moment of climax, or a
series of high points to help determine how to pace tempo and intensify
dynamics. As such, aesthetic considerations come to the fore, suggesting if the
work mirrors a waterfall or a sunset which connects the natural to the
emotional. By this token, irrespective of the experience of the individual
listener, the aesthetic range and the artistic intent of the work – from the
functional to the abstract – are all matters carefully considered by conductors (Price, 2017) . Yet studying the
score is one thing, working musicians through that piece is another.
2.3 Maestro
Morale
Since
the effect intended by a composer may not be clear to every performer in the
orchestra, a conductor who understands that position and can convey it to
performers becomes necessary. That task is arduous, especially the
communication part. Luckily, a trained conductor is extremely well-prepared in
communicating to the musicians what s/he wants. In reality, the most important
part of a conductor’s work happens not at the concert but during rehearsals (E.B., 2016) .
Thus, the conductor assumes the
responsibility of transmuting that original to the audience through the
orchestra because he has the capacity to do so. The guild of conductors
includes personalities with often very special characteristics proven to be
central to the job description of this profession. An introverted musician
hardly decides to be the person in the spotlight, whereas musicians with a more
executive nature, high self-esteem, and a certain predilection for emotional
musical exposure – along with the exertion of power – make it to the
conductor’s podium (Platte, 2016) . Raising the morale of an ensemble
therefore, is the business of a conductor if the essence of a latent score must
come alive matched in vigour and veracity to the sounds and silence borne by
sheet music.
These sounds can change the way we
feel. They can make us happy or sad, calm or angry, frightened or relaxed (Taylor, 1991) . They possess such
wonderful power of recalling in a vague and indefinite manner, those strong
emotions which were felt during long past ages (Darwin, 1872) . Conductors know this and perceive
their next piece of business, beyond interpreting the score, to be that during
which they help the orchestra appreciate the work before them. This may not
come across as the job of a teacher if that professional only seeks to churn
out pieces of information. It would however, if the teacher considers herself a
learning aid worker who seeks to help learners appreciate learning and make its
process their own.
2.4 Conducting
Music
To some audiences,
orchestral conductors seem to dramatically wave their arms with no discernible
effect on the music. In reality, conductors undergo rigorous conservatory
training, followed by feedback on the job as they move up the career ladder.
But what, exactly, they learn remains a mystery to most non-musicians; and what
constitutes good conductors’ training even more so. At the Sibelius Academy in
Helsinki, Finland – a conservatory reputed to be one of the best in the world –
conducting students are helped to develop schoolteacher qualities. A good
teacher makes children work well together and makes them pay close attention
even when he speaks softly (E.B., 2016) . Conductors evolve
the culture of saying less and doing less yet getting the most out of
musicians. Rather than do otherwise, teachers should approach the paradigm of
saying and doing less in the classroom yet getting the most out of learners. The
student conductor, who would rather do more, gets better by gleaning twenty-first
century schoolteacher qualities. That teacher gets better by imbibing an
accomplished maestro’s strategy. The question demanding an answer is: how does
the maestro on that podium get such beauteous music out of an orchestra without
sounding a note himself?
The
finest conductors master how to effectively communicate five elements of their
music by way of gestures. The time
signed at the beginning of the sheet music is the first. A conductor must sign
that in patterns, suggesting the number of beats in each bar. The second is the
ictus which is the lowest point of
each stroke in the pattern, signifying each beat. The faster the conductor
gestures, the faster these “icti” are reached. Thus, s/he passes the third
message, tempo. The fourth is the preparatory (usually upward) stroke
which triggers the opening beat. In addition to these, a conductor’s pattern
may also convey a wealth of other expressive information to an ensemble – the
fifth – most notably dynamics and articulation. Size is the conductor’s
best tool in manipulating ensemble dynamics. By keeping the baton in the same
tempo but varying the overall height and breadth of the pattern, the conductor
may alternately tell his ensemble to play louder or softer, while an
emphatically pronounced ictus indicates an accent which makes for a heavier
feel to the music (Andrews, Das, & Lederer,
2009) .
These five gestures are communicated by the conductor in rehearsals,
anticipated by an ensemble in performance and witnessed by an audience in
concert.
The
experience of an audience at an art music event may constitute a parallel for
the community directly impacted by an institution of learning it hosts. The
transformation experienced by performers who work with a conductor is the
subject in focus and should serve as the parallel for the learners in class who
work with a teacher. What the conductor does is create the right atmosphere for
dozens of musicians to play the same piece of music keeping the same time. What
the teacher does should be similar: create a learning environment fit for
learning the same content within the same period.
Such a learning environment serves its
purpose in a school system if it’s all-encompassing. Therefore, learning
environments are student-centered to the degree to which they are concurrently
knowledge-centered, learner-centered, assessment-centered and
community-centered (Froyd & Simpson, 2008) . This is
unachievable where the instructional strategies revolve around the teacher.
In a lecture-formatted classroom
obtainable in a traditional school system, students listen to an instructor
speak, process the new information being conveyed, and write down key ideas for
future reference (Drake,
Kayser, & Jacobowitz, 2016) . This sounds more like the conductor
showing musicians how to play all the instruments in a rehearsal. Of course,
learning to play instruments should have been achieved before this rehearsal. When
one considers the flipped classroom – one way to make teacher and students
trade places – everything changes. In a flipped classroom, students gain new
material outside of class, usually via reading or lecture video, and then use
class time to do the harder work of assimilating that knowledge, perhaps
through problem solving, discussion, or debates (Brame,
2013) .
Although changing to a flipped
classroom takes time, effort and commitment on the part of teachers and
students, benefits abound. Students learn at their own pace; teachers engage
with individual students (or groups of students); teachers witness mistakes
students make as they are making them thereby gaining a better sense of
students’ thought processes and as such are able to differentiate content in
class. There also is the unique benefit of being able to educate parents along
with their children (Drake,
Kayser, & Jacobowitz, 2016) . In all these, learning is taking
place, but it is not the teacher who is actively doing it.
Most of what the music teacher does –
like the conductor of the orchestra studies the score – is done before the
lesson. For instance, in planning and assessment, the teacher employs the three
levels of preparation: what students know; what students can do; and what
students think about their music-making (Hansen
& Imsie, 2016) . This is based on the six levels of
Bloom’s Taxonomy as revised by Anderson and Krathwohl (2001). Again, it works
where a teacher sincerely desires to make the change from controlling
everything to allowing students take charge of their own learning, an
experience they crave.
Ceding control of that experience to
learners has proven to be enjoyable on the one hand and to improve student
learning on the other (Froyd
& Simpson, 2008) . Instructors who reverse the
teacher-centered approach place learning at the center of the classroom
environment, where both teacher and students share responsibility for teaching
and ensuring that learning is occurring (Moate
& Cox, 2015) , and that students are the very ones
actively doing it. This means a good chunk of the responsibility goes to them.
Fortunately, a model for the gradual release of responsibility has been
furnished educators. It involves focused instruction, guided instruction,
collaborative learning and independent learning (Fisher
& Frey, 2008) .
This is how learning is achieved by conducting
techniques. In other words, the end is that the teacher ensures that learning
takes place by actively engaging learners. The means is that the teacher adopts
the strategy of a conductor who is familiar with the work by first-hand
experience or by research. The teacher conducts learning by allowing students
play an active role while she guides with purposeful instructions, making them
work together, and work alone when necessary, so that the learning experience
becomes that of one and all. That teacher may be more appropriately referred to
as a learning aid worker.
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