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)
My experience is that many conductors believe it is easier to make mistakes, than believe it is easier to conduct with precision. What if these conductors are wrong, even if the evidence says that they’re all correct?
What I mean by the evidence proving them right, is that many conductors find making mistakes consistently easy, because they make mistakes easily.
As an Alexander Technique teacher, when I look at the way most people use their bodies in conducting, many conductors move poorly and wear out their bodies over time. Does this mean poor posture and poor use is easier than good posture and good use in conducting?
IT IS INCREDIBLY HARD ON YOU EMOTIONALLY TO CONDUCT BELIEVING IT IS DIFFICULT TO CONDUCT ACCURATELY, THAN TO BELIEVE IT IS EASY TO CONDUCT WITH PRECISION. This means every time you conduct, at least at the deepest emotional level, you will approach conducting with fear, if you believe conducting is difficult.
So, it seems to me, it is actually incredibly hard to approach conducting hedging your bets. Hedging your bets means that when you begin to conduct, you DON’T assume you will conduct easily and accurately.
I really like challenging conductors on what they believe. When you go with what many conductors believe, you’re going to find conducting a struggle to do with ease and accuracy. But what about conductor prodigies that find conducting easy?
In a very perverse way many conductors find it easier NOT to trust themselves to conduct with extraordinary ease, so is this going with the flow? What do I mean?
IF IT IS EFFORTLESS TO BELIEVE THAT CONDUCTING IS DIFFICULT, AND THAT THE BEST SYMPHONIC OR CHORAL LITERATURE IS HARD TO CONDUCT, THEN YOU ARE EFFORTLESSLY BELIEVING CONDUCTING IS HARD.
Beliefs and habits based on what many conductors believe about conducting are pretty unforgiving, when these beliefs and habits make conducting something to be feared.
Again, what about conductor prodigies? They have found a way to make conducting easy, and accuracy and interpretation something they do with ease and facility.
So, what is the hardest part of making conducting a joy? Is conducting hard, or does it seem incredibly difficult to give up your belief that conducting is hard, given that probably the majority of conductors frighten each other to death when talking about the greatest orchestral or choral compositions?
Look, I understand. As a former concert guitarist, I believed the guitar was an incredibly difficult instrument to play with ease and accuracy. At a certain point in my twenties I realized I was wrong.
IT FINALLY BECAME EASIER FOR ME TO ACCEPT THAT THE CLASSICAL GUITAR COULD BE EASY, THAN TO GO WITH THE MAJORITY OF GUITARISTS I HAD KNOWN, WHO BELIEVED THE GUITAR WAS INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT TO PLAY WONDERFULLY, ACCURATELY, AND MUSICALLY.
