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)
HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT YOU’RE NOT DOING ANYTHING PHYSICALLY HARMFUL IN YOUR CONDUCTING TECHNIQUE AND POSTURE? This question seems like it would be very easy to answer, even if it isn’t always easy for you to create a conducting technique/posture that is benign. One answer is, when you are hurting as you conduct, you are doing something wrong when you conduct.
But what if you aren’t hurting, and you’re doing something wrong in your conducting technique that will eventually get you in physical trouble. How do you know if this is happening?
There are two signs that hint at future physical problems. First, you can’t conduct the most difficult literature that is worth conducting, without a struggle, so you can’t count on your hands and arms to make it through the most difficult sections of these pieces without pain and strain. Second, you are physically exhausted on a daily basis after conducting. Maybe a better word for exhausted is that your conducting wearies you and your body.
If you are a conductor who has conducted for a very long time, and the above two things are happening in your conducting on a regular basis, and you don’t have any consistent aches or pains when you conduct, then you probably have not paid any attention to your struggle and weariness as you conduct.
In fact they may have been with you for such a long time, that you never ever questioned whether struggling with the best orchestral or choral music and being exhausted by it was inevitable.
STRUGGLING WITH AND BEING WEARIED BY THE BEST ORCHESTRAL AND CHORAL MUSIC IN YOUR CONDUCTING IS NOT INEVITABLE. IT IS HOW YOU LEARNED TO CONDUCT. IT ISN’T THE NATURE OF CONDUCTING TO HURT YOU WITH ITS GREATEST LITERATURE.
So, you have two choices here. You can hold it together doing what you’ve always done, and you may never get into physical trouble. Do you really never ever want to explore whether you have what it takes to conduct the best repertoire with great ease and joy and be ecstatic at the end of a practice session?
Or do you want to preemptively take a very close look at your conducting technique, posture, and body use, and discover whether the orchestra’s and choral group’s best compositions are available to you?
Having said what I just said, let me back up a bit. Most conductors do not question their technique and find their way to an Alexander Technique teacher, until they get into physical trouble. I can understand it. Many conductors do not want to back up to almost being a beginner again, even for a short period, to solve technique problems they never knew existed or shouldn’t exist. What do I mean by “shouldn’t exist”?
I mean that after years of training with teachers you believed in, it can be very scary to accept that there may be a much better way to use your body to conduct. Is confronting this fear worth it? The better question is, are you worth making the changes to how you conduct, so that you can create the performances you want, without struggle and angst?
Yes! But be aware that if you live by the motto, “no strain, no gain”, then you can’t continue to live by this belief, if you pursue the holy grail of effortless conducting technique you deserve.
