CONDUCTING
How to practice conducting at home
by Gianmaria Griglio
CONDUCTING
How to practice conducting at home
by Gianmaria Griglio
How to approach a new score
Find the big picture, the structure, the long arch connecting everything together and that will give you the direction of the piece.
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CONDUCTING
How to practice conducting at home
by Gianmaria Griglio
Once you start forming a more precise idea of the piece, you’ll find yourself dealing with some other rather “obvious” choices on the technical aspect, like the tempo changes, cues, dynamics etc.
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CONDUCTING
How to practice conducting at home
by Gianmaria Griglio
Subjective but can be of great help. For example, you could use colors, and mark cues in blue and dynamics in red; or tempo changes in green; or structural phrasing with a downward line for the whole orchestra.
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Marking the score
CONDUCTING
How to practice conducting at home
by Gianmaria Griglio
To start, imagine you have the orchestra in front of you: now, sing and conduct. You don’t need to be a singer, that’s not the important part: singing gives you a better idea of breathing and phrasing.
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Sing and conduct
CONDUCTING
How to practice conducting at home
by Gianmaria Griglio
Film yourself: use your camera, your phone, your tablet and when you re-watch it make sure your conducting fundamentals are in place: - body placement and posture - eyes - baton grip and placement - left hand
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Check and re-check
CONDUCTING
How to practice conducting at home
by Gianmaria Griglio
Just like you would do on your instrument: break it down to where you see yourself having problems and practice only that section. And then, bit by bit, you can put it all together!
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Practice slowly