What Conductors Are Really Doing | WIRED

a conductor is like a director in the sense that a conductor sets the scene that allows the actors the musicians to step fully into the music my name is Kent Riedel I'm a conductor and an organist I live in New York City [Music] protecting is kind of mysterious and not so mysterious these beat patterns anyone can learn and they're in textbooks as are the concept of m'god [Music] [Applause] articulations this is all in the textbooks a conductor needs to be able to do a number of things very very well you have to have a clear beat pattern and that has to be modified for whatever the musical context is the conductor needs to have a sense of tempo and one of the hardest parts of maintaining or developing a sense of timing is that when the Adrenaline's on and you're in front of an audience and performers your sense of time can change [Music] communication is a very big part of what the conductor needs to do there is the communicating of the conductor's own interpretation of the music and how to do that in an open way that invites people who on the communication level I've found the most fulfilling moments to be when I am just empty and facilitating a conduit of energy that comes from the player goes back to the player or the singer and that's all about communication the very first things that we teach with my students we go into the beat patterns themselves so this is called the upbeat and in fact starting and stopping is the most important thing that the conductor does how you give that up beat connotes the tempo and connotes the character and the dynamic we have one one is simple 1 1 1 when we do a two beat we have one two one two now for a three pattern we do one the rebound goes slightly the other way to hit two travels this way and then three so while we're making a triangle this way the rebound is really important if it needs to be a four pattern it becomes a little more complicated so you have one now two is going to go this way two three four what's always important is that the upbeat travels far enough that it gives room for a good downbeat if you're stingy here then the musical choke so it's very hard for conductors to learn to have a high enough upbeat to really allow the music to go freely most students who are studying conducting have had an experience of beat patterns if they're in a conservatory environment and it may take a student several weeks to be able to do one one one so that there's a gentle fall and a natural rise the basic training for tempo is internalization on the part of the conductor how we trained tempo involves the metronome if we turn the metronome on to 60 which is 60 beats to the minute we conduct to that we move to that we feel that we turn the metronome off we step away get a breath of air come in try to call back the physical sensation of that feeling for that tempo conduct conduct turn the metronome on where we on target are we too fast are we too slow I will attempt to conduct 60 beats per minute let's try 120 here's 48 the fact of the matter is is we become excited our heart rates raise and then our perception of tempo can actually run ahead of us so that a tempo that we thought was 120 is actually 132 because our whole physical body is in a faster tempo to begin with so regulating mentally to be at the right tempo when something crazy has gone on in a performance is a real challenge so there's a tradition of conducting of right hand left hand independence mainly tradition has had that the right hand since most people are right-handed is the hand that is going to take precedence with beat and with entrance and that the left hand is going to add more kind of musical elements phrasing cut offs specific articulations perhaps specific cues it's a cue can be done for example here percussion bang there they are or if they're over here there it goes or you might do the cue percussion there there are other times when the left hand actually mirrors the right hand and so you do exactly the opposite just to create a sense of flow the other times on the left hand really does things that are additive [Applause] [Music] [Applause] if you really can engender right hand left hand independence you then are able to show two things at once we have an exercise which is to do the beat pattern and then to do for example crescendo diminuendo [Music] I find with almost all of my beginning students is that we've now figured out how to do the for pattern now let's do a crescendo over eight counts it'll look something like this if the arm will go with with the beat pattern and of course you want the arm to be seamlessly engaged showing something completely different the pacing and the independence of the quality of motion is really one of the great obstacles that young conductors have to overcome more than anything the conductor's job is to create a sense of architecture and the conductor can only do that if the conductor understands the form we look first at the larger structure break that down into components we look at what's happening harmonically with those components in terms of key relationships throughout we look at how the individual and smaller components are made up themselves whether there are what we call send out a form or a fugue in another form a conductor needs to be able to at any moment sing any one of the parts and that work all the vocal parts all the instrumental parts you're doing solfege you're playing at the piano you're singing you live parts you're putting it together reassembling the score in your brain that is what then empowers the conductor to be open and in control without being in control and it's also what empowers the conductor to go wherever the conductor is needed in a performance there's a part of conducting that is showmanship and the conductor always has to be careful that that doesn't kind of take hold and run some people conduct because they like to stand on a podium and control other people that's the ego conductor other people conduct because they really want to be part of a picture that's larger than themselves they want to bring a sense of musicality and interpretation and they want to facilitate the hook-up of all the people who are involved in performing there are many times where large gestures are completely appropriate and the music really reflects that there are times when a conductor makes large flamboyant gestures beyond such a scale so that in the end not one of them means anything if you've studied your score and examine the architecture and you know where the key Peaks are and then you create a large gesture then you really have something in the performance we do as best we can to the zone where we're completely open completely alive interacting receiving the information preparing the scene before the information happens the beauty of a performance is that there's no looking back you're just going forward in that sense if you've studied the architecture you can go on an amazing ride [Music] [Music] Oh Oh [Applause] [Music] that's fun [Applause]

Channel: WIRED

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Keywords: masterminds, conductor, conductors, wired masterminds, wired mastermind, orchestra leader, band leader, how to conduct, what a conductor is doing, what does a conductor do, what does a conductor do with his hands, kent tritle, conducting, how to conduct an orchestra, how to conduct a band, what a conductor does, wired conductor, wired orchestra, wired interview, legato, mercato, fortissimo, fortissimo meaning, conducting terms, music, conductor hands, chorus, wired

Id: diwV2HGKerE

Length: 12min 27sec (747 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 04 2019