How to conduct tempo changes (Copy)

Conducting Pills How to study a score more efficiently By Gianmaria Griglio

Conducting Pills Unlike instrumental and vocal techniques, over the centuries conducting technique has not seen the same type of development.

Conducting Pills To this day it is still largely taught in very basic blocks: right hand for keeping the tempo in two-dimensional patterns, left hand for expression.

Conducting Pills This idea is fundamentally limiting the conductor to a time beating machine with some non-specific gestures left for an even more generic concept of expression.

Conducting Pills Conducting in itself is a lifetime learning experience but the steps through which one goes are always the same: – Learning the score – Installing a technical system for its delivery – Delivering it

Conducting Pills The culprit is the second step: how do you do that?

Conducting Pills When you start paying more attention to the visual aspect of the page, you’ll start to correlate those signs with baton movements, different stroke types, and baton placement.

Conducting Pills This is the nuts and bolts of Visual Score Study: look at the score from a technical point of view, seeing in it a graphical representation of a succession of baton movements.

Conducting Pills The topography of the score will be an enormous reservoir of gestures: – length and character of the notes = length of the strokes (staccato, legato, short, long, accents etc.)

Conducting Pills – dynamics indicate the region in which the stroke is formed and delivered

Conducting Pills – orchestration speaks for the space in which the stroke operate

Conducting Pills – pitch serves as a map for following the contour of the line

Conducting Pills Once you combine all of this together, you will have a unique vocabulary that changes almost from bar to bar, effectively giving you all the tools to show the music, “painting” its shape in the air. map for following the contour of the line

Conducting Pills How to practice? Take a look at the full post for a series of exercises on Visual Score Study. Happy conducting!