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)
When you conduct with the head flowing upward, this is called DIRECTION or DIRECTING in the Alexander Technique. Directing means that there is an upward flow, upward direction, an upward vector in the conductor’s body. This means that the conductor is ordering the head to lead the spine upward, so that all of the disks and vertebrae are decompressed, so the conductor can have superb posture and technique organization to assist in communicating with the orchestra or choral group.
This is a central principle of the Alexander Technique – the body is organized in vectors, directing, and not in held positions. Directing is the head LEADING the spine into lengthening. This is not an alignment to be held. Think about it. When you conduct you are in constant motion, so trying for a specific placement/position of any part of the body is asking the impossible of your body.
You can look good holding a specific posture and holding a specific conducting technique, but you will eventually feel bad, because you have immobilized part or all of your body, as you simultaneously move to conduct. You have asked the impossible of your body, which means you have put yourself/body in a double bind. When you attempt to move your body and immobilize it at the same time, the result is pain, strain, compression, and injury.
The Alexander Technique is extraordinary at asking the body to do THE POSSIBLE. It does this incredibly well, because the Alexander Technique uses a belief system and vocabulary that is very accurate. What I mean, is that what we teach conductors is very clear and very possible and very kind to the body.
When you are directing as you conduct, there as a very light, powerful, and dynamic spine being led into lengthening upward, as you move your arms. Directing is bringing to full consciousness what the healthy happy baby does, but usually loses once in school and possibly in conducting.
So many conductors have learned that the goal of fine conducting may override taking care of your body, and, “that’s just the way it is”. This does not have to happen if you conduct directing, you trust your hands and arms to be clear in their communicating to the orchestra or choral group what you want, and you don’t do anything in your conducting technique that will eventually cause harm to the body.
Implicit in directing is that you are taking care of your body as you conduct. To make directing an integral part of your conducting technique, you have to practice your directing as you conduct. This means that you treat directing the same as your head, neck, hands, and arms. (I’m assuming that you treat your head, neck, hands, and arms with love and patience, and that is how you will approach reclaiming directing.)
Remember you naturally directed when you were a crawling baby, so when you organize your body when you conduct with direction, you are reclaiming your birthright.
