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)
Opposition is an Alexander Technique concept that is about the physical relationships within one’s body, and your relationship to what you are doing. It is a concept put into practice that teaches you how not to collapse into your body and how not to collapse into what you’re doing.
Applied to the conducting, it means you don’t collapse toward the orchestra or choral group as you conduct. If you observe a 1,000 conductors, you will see most of them not in a truly effortless postural upright balance. They are usually collapsing downward to the music stand and toward the orchestra or choral group to conduct.
The internal aspect of opposition means that as you collapse downward and forward, it means you’re head is closer to your hands and your legs, as you pull your head down to see or communicate. This means you’re skeleton is not in opposition posturally and between your joints.
The psychological component of this is that you are trying to get your head closer to what you’re doing, to get control of the orchestra or choral group. You unconsciously are attempting to be more accurate by getting your head closer to what you are doing. It is actually physicalizing fear posturally, because you’re afraid of making a mistake.
Most of us learned to do this when we learned to read and write in school, attempting to read or write well for a good grade, with our heads two inches away from the book or paper. You also learned to do this when you were a beginner in conducting, attempting to get control by pulling downward and forward.
WHEN YOU ALLOW YOURSELF TO STAND OR SIT FULLY UPRIGHT AS YOU CONDUCT WITH BALANCED POSTURE AND YOUR HEAD RELEASING UPWARD, YOU ARE IN CONTROL OF YOUR BODY, TECHNIQUE, AND SELF, AND YOU WILL ULTIMATELY BE IN GREATER CONTROL OF THE ORCHESTRA OR CHORAL GROUP.
Opposition is an extraordinary concept, that when put into practice, allows you to use your body in relationship to itself and the orchestra or choral group, so that you are able to do the least amount of work necessary to conduct with effortless coordination.
When you consciously choose your posture and your conducting technique and remain conscious of how you want to be in relationship to your body, then you are choosing also how you want to feel about your conducting. This means as you stand or sit fully upright, aware of your head, neck, and torso balanced upward and flowing upward instead of downward and forward, then you aren’t conducting with tunnel vision.
Tunnel vision leads to tunnel posture, which means as you conduct without internal and external opposition, your technique and posture is being forced on you, because you are trying to get the music right. Rather than you choosing to stand or sit up balanced and watching it unfold in the moment, you are using excess tension and poor posture to try as hard as you can to conduct well.
IT IS AN AMAZING FEELING WHEN YOU CONDUCT MAKING ALL OF THE POSTURAL AND TECHNIQUE DECISIONS, RATHER THAN THE CONDUCTING AND MUSIC FORCING YOU TO SACRIFICE YOUR BODY, BECAUSE YOU HAVE BEEN TRYING TO GET WHAT YOU WANT OUT OF THE ORCHESTRA OR CHORAL GROUP AT ANY COST.
