BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
What does a conductor do, anyway?
It’s a question many people ask — including conductors.
That’s why Ingrid Martin is launching a digital resource to help give a boost to her fellow industry practitioners.
Conducting Artistry is a fresh online learning platform, and it launches on December 10. Ingrid has prepared a whole heap of goods for the initiative — videos, courses, and even a podcast — so conductors can learn more about their craft.
She draws from her own experiences as a conductor and lecturer, having worked with countless musicians through her leadership roles with the Victorian Youth Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra 21, Zelman Memorial Symphony Orchestra, and Bayside Chamber Orchestra.
Ingrid teaches conducting at the University of Melbourne, but you can be literally anywhere to learn with her through this new initiative.
Ingrid, what is Conducting Artistry all about, anyway?
Conducting Artistry is a place where anyone, from anywhere, at any time, can access quality resources to improve their conducting and become a more inspiring musical leader.
As a result, ensemble members, audiences, and conductors across the world will have more moving, meaningful musical experiences.
Why’d you want to create this community for conductors?
Conductors and musical leaders come from many different backgrounds. There are professional instrumentalists who decide it’s their turn to step in front of an ensemble, after having played under hundreds of different conductors. Often, instrumental and classroom music teachers in schools have the responsibility of conducting an ensemble thrust upon them. Community musicians, who may have little musical background, often pick up the baton out of sheer love for their ensemble and making music with their tribe.
What unites all these different people is often a lack of formal conducting training, and very busy schedules!
Currently, conductor training means enrolling in an entire degree, or taking an in-person workshop. For many people this isn’t feasible — whether it be due to time, family, and work commitments, geographic location, or finances. I wanted conductors to be able to access high-quality resources at any time that could improve their work and enhance the experience of their ensemble members.
Sounds pretty accessible, considering our hectic modern lifestyles.
Our content is designed for busy people. It can be read or watched in a lunch break, and be immediately implemented the next time the conductor is in front of their group.
Conducting can also be a pretty lonely gig. While we get lots of energy from our ensemble during rehearsals and performances, most of our work happens alone — studying scores, planning rehearsals, selecting repertoire and honing our technique. It’s easy to get in your head and think the problems you’re experiencing are unique and blame yourself. Instrumentalists in practice rooms are great at this, too!
Knowing there are other people out there who are striving to improve like you, and meeting the same challenges, can be really empowering and give you a boost to keep learning.
So what sorts of resources does Conducting Artistry showcase? And what value do you see these resources bringing to conductors?
Living in the video age is an incredible opportunity for conductor education!
Before, you had to read books about how to conduct. Our videos demonstrate best-practice gestures and techniques with nuance and clarity. We make a point of always showing common issues, and explaining the impact they have on the ensemble sound.
A great example is the relationship of the breath to the movement of the arms. When you don’t breathe, the movement looks less genuine, less believable. This is also the case if the breath and movement happen at exactly the same time. However, when the breath leads the gesture, suddenly the movement looks authentic and heartfelt. It’s much easier for the musicians to respond to confidently. The result is the tone is richer, the ensemble is more together, and there is more trust in the conductor. This is hard to capture in words, but easy to understand when you see it shown on screen.
On the blog, we cover a wide variety of topics including rehearsal techniques, rehearsal planning, score analysis, repertoire selection, communication with ensembles, conductor and musician health and wellbeing, reviews of other resources, and educational philosophy.
The Conducting Artistry Podcast focuses on a different topic each season. The first season is about artistic planning, repertoire selection, and programming. Across the seven-episode series, we cover how to build a program that engages and spellbinds audiences, how to create contrast and variety, and how to pick music that will allow the ensemble to get beyond just notes and rhythms to perform expressively.
How have your own conducting experiences made an impact on the development of Conducting Artistry?
The solutions in Conducting Artistry are based on the most common issues I hear in ensembles, work on with conductors and face in my own rehearsals.
Since 2002, I’ve been on the podium myself, refining solutions to common musical problems, working out what elevates an ensemble in the quickest amount of time.
For the past 10 years, I’ve worked with hundreds of conductors in one-on-one lessons, masterclasses, and workshops, as well as adjudicating ensembles across the country. Throughout this time, I’ve been able to develop clear solutions to the most common musical issues that challenge us as conductors.
I also know the incredible positive impact that good conducting, rehearsing, and teaching have on an ensemble and their audience. As a result, I’m passionate about empowering every conductor to be able to lead these kind of transformative experiences.
Often, our technical issues as conductors contribute to common musical problems, like speeding up, dragging, lifeless phrases, and bland dynamics. These can be easily solved when you understand the reasons why, and know the solution to apply, resulting in more vibrant performances.
Other times, simply helping a conductor understand how to choose appropriate repertoire will elevate an ensemble’s morale, behaviour, audience engagement, and performance standards.
Why do you feel conductors could do with this extra boost when it comes to their education, outside academia or physical workshops?
Lack of time is the biggest reason conductors give me for not investing in their professional development. […] Lack of confidence can also prevent young or less-experienced conductors from pursuing learning opportunities.
If you don’t have much conducting training — or any! — going to a workshop or masterclass can be really intimidating. You may not feel ready to get up in front of a group, particularly made up of experienced musicians.
Conducting Artistry allows you to work on yourself in your own time, build your confidence and learn at your own pace.
What are some of a conductor’s biggest challenges that performers might not realise?
This is an awesome question. Three that come to mind are how much is going on in our head in rehearsal, the vulnerability required to be expressive, and the ability to listen deeply while conducting.
If you could see inside the mind of a conductor, I think most ensemble musicians would be shocked at how much information is going in, being processed and filtered, and going out whilst also trying to communicate something cogently by flapping our arms.
Conductors, like performers, have to be in three places in time at once — listening to what is currently happening, evaluating what just happened, and projecting what’s about to happen taking into account the past and the present. We always have to be ahead of the ensemble in our gestures. If we show something on the moment we want it to happen, it’s too late for the ensemble to respond.
A typical 20 bars in the head of a conductor might sound something like this:
- Will I stop for that issue or come back to it later? Mental note: rehearse bar 49 again.
- The timpanist is unsure, so I need to smile and look at them earlier than normal so they are prepared.
- Do we even have timpani booked for the gig? Who is driving the truck?
- If I look at the first horn player during their solo, will it throw them off and make them crack a note?
- The flutes’ intonation is killing me. Give them a dirty look so they know.
- The cellist was late on that entry, but she had a loss in the family, so I need to be especially kind and mindful to her today. Ignore the entry and ask afterward if she is okay.
- I missed the cue for the trumpet solo, but they came in and saw me say ‘I’m sorry’. Mental note: cue trumpet next time.
- The staccato sounds really heavy, I’ll give more wrist and less elbow to try to show I want it lighter.
- I tried that gesture, but no one responded. Should I try the same one, or something different?
- I tried it again, still no one is watching. Should I just stop conducting and see how long they take to notice?
- The flutes finally played in tune! Smile so they know you heard it.
- Why aren’t the basses and the percussion together? Raise eyebrows at them.
- Did Jackson bring the biscuits for the break today?
- The acoustics are really loud in here, I’ll have to rehearse something quiet next to give the players ears a rest.
- The violas are getting bored of rehearsing this section because they just have offbeats. Sorry, violas.
- Why are the back desks looking so sullen and lifeless? It must be me, I need to give more energy.
- It’s the last rehearsal. How am I going to discuss that section so people are confident about the gig but still know they have to practice?
Amongst all this, we occasionally miss cues, time changes, and make mistakes. But all our efforts are to make the ensemble better and make a better experience for everyone.
When you’re in the ensemble, and you need something that you’re not getting, it’s fine to ask for it. Just remember to do it kindly and politely. Conductors care greatly for our ensembles and the musicians in them. When we get accused of things in a way that implies we don’t care about you, it can be really hurtful.
Tell us more about communication.
As musical leaders, one of our primary roles is to non-verbally communicate the expressive intent of the music to the ensemble. If you are worrying about what everyone in the ensemble is thinking about you, it’s hard to be vulnerable and really connect emotionally. Expressive music making requires a great deal of trust between the ensemble and the conductor.
Think back to your early experiences as a performer in an ensemble. You were probably concentrating so hard on executing on your instrument or voice that you had no awareness of anything around you. When a conductor is first starting out, the experience is the same. So much of your energy is on making sure you are doing the gestures you intend — there is little brainpower left to listen to the ensemble, which is really our primary job!
This can make rehearsing quite challenging, because you can’t remember what just happened and therefore what you need to work on next.
What do you hope will be Conducting Artistry’s long-term impact on the experience of conductors in Australia?
I hope that conductors in Australia, particularly in schools and the community, will be able to provide life-altering musical experiences for their ensemble members and audiences.
When we share transformative musical experiences, we become better listeners, citizens, and humans.
Sign up to the Conducting Artistry mailing list to get the inside scoop on the December 10 launch. You can also follow the initiative on Facebook and Instagram.
Images supplied.
