Explain your conducting

If you’re conducting students, and I would argue even if you aren’t conducting students, explaining your conducting can be super useful.

With students this can be especially useful. They aren’t as skilled in following a conductor as professional musicians. Professional orchestral musicians have been following different conductors for quite a while and will have a lot of experience in following different motions and gestures. They’ll likely be able to figure out what you mean just from looking at the gestures that you give them.

Less experienced musicians might not, especially if they’re in high school or younger.

So explain it to them.

Just take a few minutes in your rehearsal to tell them what you’ll be doing with your hands and what each different gesture means.

If you’re giving one specific player or group of players a gesture, let them know. Tell the whole orchestra that it’s just for that group of players or singular player so they know not to follow it.

It can also be useful to tell the orchestra to follow you at certain sections. Less experienced players won’t be able to figure out what parts of the music will require more direction than others. So tell them.

Just taking a few moments in rehearsal to explain exactly what you’re doing and exactly why you’re doing it can save a lot of confusion and time later on in the rehearsal.

It also helps the students better follow a conductor. Remember that you’re their teacher. Even if you’re conducting them for a concert remember that you are there to teach them how to play in an orchestra. And part of learning to play in an orchestra is learning to follow a conductor.

If they haven’t had to follow a conductor for a long period of time they likely don’t understand what all of the gestures are and what they all mean. So explain to them what all of that means. Remember that they haven’t studied conducting at all likely. They’ll recognize some things because they’ve seen them before, but if there’s a gesture that they haven’t seen before it can be useful to explain it to them.

I know a choir teacher who has the students practice doing the gestures with him. It’s a great break from singing for the students and gives them another look into what it’s like to direct the choir. He’s also told me that the students really enjoy doing them because it gives them a chance to be a little less serious than when they are singing.

If you’re directing a choir or orchestra give this a shot and see if it helps your players follow you a little bit better.

ISJ