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)
I have rarely had conductors come to me for an Alexander Technique session who conducted for me, who waited until they were truly ready. They began to conduct instantly, or they took a moment to brace themselves and went for it. It is fascinating how unconsciously so many conductors jump into conducting.
This comes from years and years and hours and hours of conducting. So, when an injured conductor comes to me they do what they’ve always done. As an Alexander Technique teacher it is my job to show the conductor how to do what they may have never done, which is to only conduct when they’re ready with a loving technique.
What does being ready mean? It means that the conductor only conducts after they have waited long enough to let go of everything they don’t want to do, so that they are able to do what they want to do. Physically, it means they do a whole body inventory of releasing the postural and technical habits they don’t want to bring to their conducting.
Simply you don’t conduct until you are ready, even if it takes five minutes of waiting before the first gesture. Psychologically, it means that you conduct when you’re not afraid. This can be a very very subtle thing, because so many conductors conduct without being aware of their state of mind.
When you have the loving luxury of not conducting until you are truly ready, then you are truly open to making the changes to your posture, technique, and mind that force you to sacrifice or frighten yourself when you conduct.
At this point you may say, “I’ll never be ready, if I wait until I’m ready”. How do you know, if no one has ever waited on you to be ready to conduct? The training so many musicians go through is about deferring to the teacher – conducting right away for many teachers, rather than when you’re ready.
This gets passed on from conducting teacher to student to teacher to student etc. What I mean, is that since the teacher was once the student, and if he or she was pressurized as they learned to conduct, then the teacher may also be impatient with him or herself, as well as the student.
I believe the basis for so many conductors conducting when they’re not ready is the counting of the music – when the notes live in time at tempo. This is just a fancy way of saying that the conductor feels the pressure to conduct at tempo, as strongly as he or she feels she has to convey the right interpretation at all costs.
So, the moment the conductor has committed to conducting, it is as if a clock has started ticking, and the conductor better get to it.
I want to say something at this point. I’m talking about changing the relationship of the conductor to their conducting, and I’m talking about doing it in a loving practice situation. I’m not talking about being on the stage after working out all of the bugs in the music.
So, as you learn a piece of music, whether only for yourself and/or performance, give yourself the extraordinarily loving gift of learning where and when every note lives when you conduct, without compromising your technique or your heart.
