This ebook, An Alexander Technique Approach to Conducting (Conductors’) Technique, is published on this website in a PDF format. It is very detailed and practical, and it will give you the physical tools you need to take the limits off of your ability to create the accurate conducting technique you want without sacrificing your body.
This ebook is also for sale on all AMAZON websites in a KINDLE format.
Located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A. (MOVEMENT THERAPY)
When I observe conductors going all out 100% in a performance, they are almost always paying a physical price – harming their bodies. The more performances a conductor does, where he or she goes all out, the more cumulative the wear and tear.
Does it have to be this way? Is it possible for an extraordinary conductor to go all out all of the time every time he or she conducts and not cause damage to the body? Yes, but a couple of things have to happen. First, the conductor needs to use a technique where the body is always on balance, so that the conductor doesn’t have to use excess muscle to conduct the most difficult literature written for the orchestra or choral group.
The other major factor is that the conductor may use too much muscle constantly throughout the performance. This usually manifests as two negative things happening at the same time. The conductor tenses his or her whole body before he or she conducts, and he or she uses too much muscle to get the job done.
What do I mean they use too much muscle to get the job done? In anticipation of conducting, the conductor creates too much musculature tension in the arms, back, neck, legs, shoulders, etc., to make sure he or she can conduct and interpret the music exactly as they want. This has two negative effects on what he or she doing.
The first is that excess muscular tension interferes with the quality of the conducting. It usually constricts the conductor’s gestures and causes the performers to play or sing without inspiration.
Second, if conductors conduct with held musculature in anticipation of what they’re about to do, then they have forced joints together throughout the whole body unnecessarily, and hours of practice or performance with joints in compression wears out the joints. In other words, it isn’t about the hours of practice, it is about the excessive tension throughout the whole body being confused for conducting expressively.
You can conduct without damaging your body, when you conduct with a technique that creates balance throughout the whole body, and by not tensing up, conduct with total all out ease.
It is a powerful realization for me to see how conductors who go all out in a performances, assume they have to pay a physical price to experience the joy of an all out commitment to conducting their best for the audience. This is the norm. It is a norm based on the assumption that you can’t do your best in a concert unless you are willing to do damage to your body over time.
If this is true, then conducting without holding back is not a win win situation, it is a win lose situation, where the conductor believes the momentary glory is worth a lifetime of pain, or at worst a crippled body.
Conducting a concert without holding back can be a win win situation, if the conductor learns to conduct on balance using released muscles, and doing the dynamic least to create support for free arms. Going all out is the way it should be, because it is doing what you love without holding back, which is an act of self-love, commitment, and self-loyalty.
