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)
Over the years as I’ve taught conductors, there is a term that keeps coming up, and that word is PREPARATION. It is a term that has been defined by the conductors I’ve worked with as that moment right before conducting, when the conductor prepares him or herself to conduct well from the very first note.
I’d like to Alexanderize the term. In fact there already are two terms in the Alexander Technique that together beautifully capture the concept of preparation when conducting. These words are DIRECTING and INHIBITION.
To DIRECT is to release your neck and allow your spine to lengthen right before you conduct. To INHIBIT is to let go of what you DON’T want to do before you conduct. I’m expanding the concept of inhibition in this essay to mean ALL you don’t want to do before you conduct, rather than the traditional meaning of inhibition. The strict Alexander Technique definition of inhibit is to choose ONE habit to NOT do right before you conduct, that isn’t serving you.
What is it that most conductors do right before they conduct that they call preparation? THEY STRIKE A POSE FROM HEAD TO TOE AND FROM SHOULDER TO FINGERS, THAT THEY HAVE CHOSEN AS THE BEST JUMP OFF POINT FOR CONDUCTING.
Is this good or bad? STRIKING A POSE before you play is bad from the Alexander Technique perspective. Why?
BECAUSE, WHEN YOU STRIKE A POSE BEFORE YOU CONDUCT, YOU ARE IMMOBILIZING THE WHOLE BODY IN PREPARATION FOR CONDUCTING. You are tensing and locking up and taking the space out of all of your joints before you conduct. This is what causes wear and tear to the body, and it also negatively affects how well you conduct.
There is another huge problem associated with tensing before conducting. Most conductors do not have good posture, so that the moment of preparation before conducting is an immobilizing of the whole body in preparation to conduct with POOR posture.
What the hands and arms do is usually more thought out by the conductor, so that the hands and arms are placed consciously, for better or worse, before conducting.
Let me define what the Alexander Technique considers conscious proper preparation right before you conduct.
RIGHT BEFORE YOU CONDUCT, DO A FULL BODY INVENTORY OF UPWARD RELEASE FROM HEAD TO TOE AS PART OF YOUR TECHNIQUE. RELEASE ARMS, HANDS, AND FINGERS OUT OF FLOATING SHOULDERS AS PART OF YOUR CONDUCTING TECHNIQUE.
So, preparation from the Alexander Technique perspective is preparing the WHOLE body to conduct just before you conduct. By physically releasing and expanding in all directions, the whole body is “poised in release” to conduct.
THIS MEANS YOU MOVE INTERNALLY FIRST, JUST BEFORE THIS INTERNAL MOVEMENT MANIFESTS AS CONDUCTING.
I have never ever seen a conductor who has not done any Alexander Technique do this internal release right before conducting. They “lock and load” (literally), as they say right before a marksman shoots a rifle.
There is a mental/psychological reason for preparation before conducting. At that very moment before conducting, you bring all of your attention, awareness, and focus to the music about to be conducted.
When I think of focusing on something, I instantly think of narrowing my attention to only the task at hand. If I’m really honest with myself, my habit is to hunker down to block out the world, especially if I’m about to play the guitar or do and complete any task perfectly. I now choose not to do this.
“Hunkering down” is what I see in most conductors do in conjunction with what they call preparation. This means that the conductor does this contradictory combination of conscious technique and postural positionings right before he or she conducts. The conductor ties conscious technique choices to unconscious hunker down habits to block out any distractions, either from the audience or to suppress feelings of fear.
I’m asking you to do the opposite of what just about every other conductor does the very moment before conducting. RELEASE!
By choosing to define your conducting technique as “POSITIONS OF RELEASE” right before you conduct, then you are doing what most conductors do not do right before conducting. Release any unnecessary tension and physical habits out of your body, and conduct on these physical expansions throughout the whole body.
What is so extraordinary about doing this is you are preparing to conduct by trusting an expansive body to conduct accurately. You are NOT tensing for precision and NOT immobilizing your arms and hands before a whole assortment of refined movements, which is called conducting.
