Choral Conducting

Choral Conductin g A workshop facilitated by

Onum Gilbert Phone: (+234)7039059605 E-Mail: [email protected]

First edition: December 2010

Introduction: As with every aspect of music, conducting is a skill that needs to be developed. Unfortunately, just hands full of conductors in most of our choirs and chorales today, have had one form of formal training or the other. The vast majority of these conductors, learnt on the job after series of embarrassments, some others, drew experiences from watching their local choirmasters/conductors. Some of whom may not have been very good role models. Enhancing ones conducting skills in such a circumstance could be very difficult.

Conducting Conducting involves the use of musical sign language made up of hands, arm and facial gestures rather than speech, to communicate with the musicians in the ensemble or chorale. This tends to reflect the individual’s personality in the conducting as his feelings are articulated on the piece of music rendered. This is not to say that standard practices do not exist but that no two choirmasters can be the same even if the use the same standard.

The functions of the right and left hands The function of the right hand is to beat time, while the left hand is to highlight in some way the expressive qualities of the music. The right hand indicates dynamics (by varying the size of the beat) and the left hand is employed by the conductor to deal with the beginning and end of a phrase.

Important things to note Downbeat/upbeat: the downbeat is the beat immediately after the bar or in other words the first accented beat of a measure. While the upbeat is the beat just before another bar

Ictus: Cutoff:

Conducting patterns Timing; -

4/4 pattern can also be used in 4/2, 4/8 and fast 12/8

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3/4 pattern can also be used in 3/2, 3/8, 3/16 and fast 9/8

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2/4 pattern also used in 2/2, 2/8

Skills/Technique: -

Don’t sing with the choir Your

singing

distracts

you

from

helping

your

performers,

since you can’t hear well while you are singing along.

-

Be able to read a full score

This would enable you to be able to sing all parts so you know when a part is going off, and you are able to make corrections where necessary.

-

Be familiar with a wide range of musical styles

-

Use clear and unambiguous gestures Maintain a clear gesture that your musicians will be able to understand.

Your

gestures

should

be

able

to

make

the

performance better and not to mare the performance. -

Recognize Pitch inaccuracy In other words, you know when the choir has gone off-key as most us would call it. And also to know if a modulation in a piece of music is been observed accurately.

-

Facial expression/posture Your face must represent the song/music so the choir can understand how to sing the song and also you must position yourself

in

leadership

such

and

a

ways

as

seriousness.

to

portray

Don’t

burry

self-confidence, your

face

while

conducting: This is, so that you can look into their eyes and communicate dynamics, new tempo, and rests. You are also able to identify choristers that are participating or not.

-

Establish a rapport with the accompanists To ensure smooth accompaniment of the music, correct tuning of keys, playing of intros, interludes etc

Dos and don’ts