Learning from Eric Ericson V - Conducting Technique II

This continues my notes from several sessions on conducting by Eric Ericson done for the Haystack Workshop in Oregon.

 

Ericson - Day 2

1) “caress” the air as if through water, then make attacks (not in a pattern) gradually more marked , then back to caressing motion - check to see that your shoulder muscles stay relaxed as you beat more marcato

 

2) he then does other exercises to show changes in the size of the beat:

• 5/8
• 7/8
• 6/8

3) more exercises for "co-ordination of opposites" conduct 3 (3/4), but count 2 (6/8)

("now walk around - not in tempo - just gentle")

 

4) conduct 2 (6/8) count 3 (3/4)

 

5) do both exercises 3 and 4, counting legatissimo, beating marcato (and vice versa)

 

6) more exercises for left hand independence:

• 4/4 giving cues
• one conductor is in front of class, conducts 4, cues with l.h. at his or her choice - group responds with “bop” ( if short), "bah" (if conductor indicates long)

(E. says you could also try to cue one side of the chorus with a nod from the head , the other with the l.h.)

 

7) E. improvises, asks everyone to change character with the music

then speeds up, asks to go into 2, slows back down, go into 4 again - "lighter ... heavy ... marcato ... leggiero ... light with your faces ... darker again"

 

8) Conduct hemiolas

 

9) plays Bach “Der Geisthilft” (one of the rep pieces) while we conduct

 

10) Then we conduct in 3 while he plays a minuet, then a Swedish “Hambo” (which has a very heavy downbeat), then in 1 a Kreisler waltz.

 

11) "try to give a preparatory beat with just your breathing . . . try it different ways ... feel the difference in the quality of sound . .. remember to give a deep breath with your preparations, use time (but not too quick)"

 

Day 3

 

reminders about posture

 

1) “take a breath, hum on ‘m’ . . . deeper breath ... move your head a little ... lift your arms as you breathe ... relax, no strange things, very natural ... do it again, but prepare from diaphragm

... now do it the wrong way"

 

2) conduct a small, but intense 4, while the left hand is out in front, still

 

3) count 2, conduct 4 (and vice versa); then do same counting 2, conducting 6; counting one, conducting 3 (more of “exercise in opposites”)

"move around"

 

4) more of the cuing exercise from previous day:

"right hand very intense ... l.h. stop dead with cue"

 

5) plays while alternating 6/8s (in two and six) and 3/4 - calls out changes while playing

 

“make the beat bigger . . .  smaller"

 

6) conduct 3, count 2 (3 vs. 2)

"move around ... move your left hand freely, out of tempo ... pick up imaginary music"

same, conduct 2 , count 3

 

7) Conduct 12/8 while E. plays:

"swinging beats, friction against the air"

"it's like playing the violin: too much tension (bow against the string)=scratchy sound, too little tension=airy sound - get just the right tension)"

 

8) E wants the sound to be characterized in the body as a whole "be friends with your body"

 

9) uses 12/8 for a sense of flow from beat to beat - E. improvises as we conduct: he starts with jazz -  then moves into the opening chorus from the St. Matthew Passion - impressionistic - jazz again - then “heavier, darker”

 

10) conduct fast, small 4 with r.h. only:

"emphasize the down, don't rebound so fast with your left hand:

• now while you conduct, arrange your hair . . .  walk in 2, conduct in 4 . . .  walk in 4, conduct in 2 . . . conduct in 6, but walk in a free tempo . . . continue to conduct in 6 and turn enormous score pages constantly and slowly . . .  now speak very dramatically some common text"

"the goals of this are to relax, and to think and do different things"

Learning from Eric Ericson IV - Conducting Technique I

NOTES FROM ERIC ERICSON'S CONDUCTING SESSIONS AT HAYSTACK , 1986

 

These notes are from several sessions (hence I've abbreviated in some places) that Eric Ericson did on basic conducting technique. This took place at the Haystack Workshop in Astoria, Oregon. I was singing in the 16-voice chamber choir that did a concert as well as providing the workshop choir. These are exercises to practice, or which are useful in teaching conducting (I've used them regularly). I'll spread this over two posts, corresponding to the two days Eric did this. (Sorry for any formatting "oddities" -- I had to scan and old typed version to pdf and then convert to MS Word, which made for some challenges) It's difficult, of course, to write about something that is physical and visual, but I've done my best!

 

1) Posture - find a balanced posture - now rotate your body side to side—relax your arms and let them follow your body - note that the arms follow in a circular way - "you need to find a natural way for your body to conduct"

 

2) Put your thumb and forefinger together and press intensely, so intensely that your fingertips become white - but localize the tension so that it's only in your fingers, not your arm - move your arms freely, tension only in the fingers - "too much muscle can kill the music"

 

3) Now bring your hand up to a 'normal' position - feel attachments that lift your arm

• lift , then relax - just let your arm drop - now close your eyes, lift and relax - now move your arm out to the side, lift and relax
• have a partner lift your arm with no tension then let go - it should fall naturally
• now feel as if your arm is being lifted only by an attachment at the finger - then from the wrist , elbow, shoulder

4) Now clasp your hands together and press them together hard - feel the intensity, but no tension in your shoulder

• shake hands with your partner, very firmly - check with the other hand to see that there is no tension in the shoulder of your partner

5) To find the position of the hand while conducting, simply lift up from by your side - find a natural position - avoid the elbow out or in, just ''natural”

 

6) what the conductor does must help vocal production (E. doesn't want baton for this reason)

 

7) the focus of the beat is the entire hand (not the fingers—too tense/ not the wrist—too floppy)

• the hand is where the choir reads the main information - the whole body gives 'resonance' (supports, is in agreement with) with the hand

8) conduct in 1 (Eric plays the piano) - "feel the magnetic pull towards the rebound spot" (ictus)

• now try with both hands ("don't go too high - work in the center of the body")
• feel contact with the breath and the level of the hands

9) bounce the beat off of the left hand, held at belly level

• now bounce it off the left hand at the top, the hand at the top of the beat
• now move the hand with no destination (like painting a wall)

(Eric plays a waltz - "you want a clear one that provokes what follows"}

 

10) now conduct with the whole arm - now focus in the elbow - see how awkward and inefficient

 

11) now conduct in a four pattern - E. watches and says: "don't let your elbow go out for beat 2" "don't put beat 1 in front of the body - it makes for an unnatural position"

• "don't think beat as in "beating” (schlag), use the positive aspect of heartbeat"

12) (continue conducting in 4) - feel the hand leading the beat , the arm follows

 

(comments to class while conducting) "relax your shoulder" "concentrate the beat in the hand" "walk around a little bit" "smaller beat , very small"

 

13) E. has class alternate bars conducting 4 while counting 2 and vice-versa

• then beat 3, count 1 (E. says onnne, going immediately to the 'n') beat 1 , count "1-2-3
• then beat 6, count 2
• beat 2, count 6
• (exercises of the "least common denominator")

14} "The size of the beat is related to the tempo, not the dynamic”

• he does an exercise to help feel this: change tempo with the beats the same size - doesn't work
• (he also notes that generally he doesn't want beat going above the eye level)

• now he alternates randomly, playing the piano and calling out the changes one bar ahead
• then improvises freely - conductors now keep that pattern against his rhythms

15) Independence of hands: r.h./1.h.

• r.h. conducts four, l.h. goes up and down while you sing a scale:
• then, do the opposite (the 1.h. goes the opposite direction of the scale)

16) Articulation: alternate:

• make sure the articulation of the hand coincides with what the voice does
• marcato calls for a faster rebound , contraction of muscle (E: "In America I generally feel there is too fast a rebound. This loses the possibility of sonority between beats .")
• Eric uses 12/8 for developing a legato beat - plays the opening of the St. Matthew Passion while conductors conduct ("feel the pull of the beat" )

 

17) now conduct 12/8, but sing only the first 8th note of every beat on the syllable “pom”

• Now on the 2nd eighth note

• now on the 3rd eighth note

• (you must think all the of the eighths and show the consequences of each beat

• the class keeps up this pattern while E improvises jazz

Should you conduct secco recitative?

This is a brief, but connected, detour from my posts on conducting Orfeo. It’s brought about because of a review of Rinaldo Alessandrini’s guest conducting stint with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra.

The review is on the on-line music review site, the San Francisco Classical Voice, which by the way, is a terrific site. It should be copied everywhere since newspapers are giving less and less space to classical music (and it seems that SFCV soon be expanding the kinds of things they do--see the chair's letter this week).

Alessandrini is the very well known leader of Concerto Italiano, an ensemble specializing in 17th and 18th century music (I’ll have something to say about their recent recording of Orfeo later).

As the reviewer notes:

It was a bit unfortunate, though, that Alessandrini insisted on conducting the recitatives. With a continuo group as accomplished as Philharmonia Baroque’s (including David Tayler on theorbo, Hanneke van Proosdij on harpsichord, and cellist [Tanya] Tomkins), and a singer as fine as [Marta] Almajano, I did not see the purpose. In some cases, the result was a bit confusing, as the singer sometimes seemed to desire more time than Alessandrini gave her. The continuo dutifully followed the conductor, who was not always together with Almajano.

In works with secco recitative, it’s long been my practice not to conduct those recitatives, but to conduct the beginning and the end (into the recitative from the previous movement and out into the next one), so I can control the overall pacing of the performance.

Of course, I’m involved with coaching the recitatives and helping shape the internal performance of the recitatives, too. In the case of Bach’s Johannespassion, for example, this means working with the singers for the Evangelist and Jesus roles, the organist and continuo cellist (and other continuo players if you have them). This then becomes the kind of collaborative process I’ll speak more about with Orfeo: we have to decide about what kind of freedom the singer will take and how they will shape the drama and narrative, whether continuo notes will be long or short, connected or not, what kind of realization the organist does, etc.

We know, for example, that even given long written note values in the continuo, that the notes were usually played short. But how short? With what kind of dynamics? Should some of the notes be connected and not separated?

So all of these things come through a collaborative process and the performance begins to take shape. Do I dictate how all of this should go? No. I come into the rehearsals with very definite ideas, of course, but given talented and experienced singers and continuo players, I want (and need) to take their ideas into account as well. Each singer will feel the music in a different way and, unless I absolutely disagree with their approach, I want them to be expressive, and that comes from their own inner conception of the music. Do I make suggestions? Of course! I may have an idea they haven’t considered or, given two possibilities, may have one that fits much better with my conception of the whole.

So why the question of whether to conduct or not? First, let me say that I certainly think you should have the technique to conduct recitative well—you’ll have to in any accompanied recitative—and I talk about learning this for myself in another post.

Think of it from the player’s perspective (continuo cellist, organist—or chittarone player in Orfeo): they have to watch their music (and the line for the singer as well), and listen carefully to the singer so they can place each note precisely where it should be rhythmically. Sometimes they will watch visual cues (the bow of the cellist, a nod from the organist, the singer’s breath). They listen for the singer’s breath, too. Frankly, watching a conductor as well just makes things more complicated. In that sense, you, dear conductor, are simply in the way and can lead to a stilted, rhythmically square performance.

This assumes one of two situations: experienced players with enough rehearsal time (not as much as you might think) to get comfortable with what the singer is going to do; or with inexperienced players, lots of rehearsal time to coach how they do all of this.

I’ve worked in both situations, but in either, I’d prefer to get to the point where the players are working by listening intently, know the shape of the performance, what they’re going to do in terms of lengths of notes (which they can write in their parts), dynamics, etc.—and without me conducting them.

As I’ve said, it’s my responsibility in the coaching/rehearsal sessions to make sure all fits within my overall concept and I conduct into and out of every recitative to control pacing of the drama (or in some cases, somewhere in the middle, too). If you work with students or players/singers with no experience in this style, then it might take lots of rehearsal and coaching to make this work—but isn’t that what they’re there for? To learn?

The only exception might be where you have little or no rehearsal time, something I wouldn’t recommend! But if I had to, I’d probably conduct and say, “follow me no matter what—if we’re wrong, we’re wrong together.” But how expensive is it to have a few extra rehearsals with a couple players? Not much. The biggest problem might be the availability of your vocal soloists if they're flying in from out of town at the last minute. But I'd try to avoid that, too—it simply doesn't lead to the best performance.

If you haven’t tried leaving most of the secco recitatives up to your continuo team, consider it the next time you have the opportunity to do a Bach passion or cantata. It’s a lovely, freeing, and empowering experience for your players and soloists.

And, as is noted in the review, it can often be even more flexible and beautiful than with you conducting!

Reality TV hits conducting

"Maestro" is the title of the new BBC reality series where, as Norman Lebrecht states it, "the winner among eight para-celebrities gets to conduct the BBC Concert Orchestra during the Last Night of the Proms, a ticket to world fame."

The contestants are made up of 2 rock stars, 2 newscasters, 3 actors (including David Soul of Starsky and Hutch!), and one comedian, each of whom gets 5 days of "total immersion" and some review sessions.

Interesting (with all that word often implies).

I'll be honest, I don't think the "conducting" part of conducting is the most difficult part. Many famous musicians have turned to conducting at some point in their careers, and successfully. Others have not been so successful, such as Dietrich Fisher-Diskau (as an aside, when he told Otto Klemperer that he'd be conducting a Schubert symphony the next week, Klemperer reportedly growled back, "And I'll be singing Winterreise.")

But those musicians who made a successful career in conducting were musicians with a thorough training and background before making the switch. Lebrecht says, "Consider Maestro on a relative scale of values. What if the BBC tried a talent show for new heart surgeons, with the winner performing a live angioplasty after five days’ boot camp and three weeks on the ward? Unthinkable, you’d say, it’s a matter of life and death. . . But music? Anyone can do music. You don’t have to give up childhood and six years in conservatory to sing Nessun Dorma or conduct Turandot. Four weeks of being taught how to fake it and you can fool the world. That’s what the BBC is putting over in Maestro: the principle that art is unimportant and the public are plain mugs."

What do you think?

Oops . . . didn't realize John Brough had blogged on this already. Here it is.

Sweden – April 14-16

Monday was a long trip back from Kristiansand, Norway to Stockholm on the train. While long, the weather and scenery were beautiful and it was a relaxing time.

Tuesday morning we went to the morning rehearsal of RK—their final rehearsal before their short tour to Visby (on the island of Gotland), Kristianstad, Hässleholm, and Halmstad. It’s a nice program: Mantyjärvi Pseudojojk, Sandström April o tystnad, some of Nystroem’s Havsvisioner, Lidholm . . . a riveder le stelle (one of the great 20th century a cappella masterpieces, I think), Werle trees, Jan Sandström Biegga Luothe, Stenhammar 3 Körvisor, and some Swedish traditional favorites (like Hogo Alfvén’s Aftonen). Major soloists in the Lidholm (Helena Ströberg), Werle (Johan Pejler) and Jan Sandström (Mathias Brorson) all are doing beautifully on these challenging solos.

Tuesday evening we went to Konserthuset for a program with the London Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Harding conducting. This is a little unusual, since Daniel is Chief Conductor of the Swedish Radio Orchestra—here he was appearing at the “rival” concert hall (home of the Stockholm Philharmonic) with his “other” orchestra, as he’s Principal Guest Conductor of the LSO. We saw a number of RK’s members there, the concertmaster of the Stockholm Philharmonic, and I’m sure there were many members of both the Radio Orchestra and Stockholm Philharmonic!

The program was interesting: Boulez Mémoriale for flute and eight instruments, Prokofiev 2nd violin concerto with Viktoria Mullova as soloist, and Brahms 2nd Symphony.

The Boulez was well-played by the six string players, 2 horns and principal flute. The principal horn at the end has a long diminuendo, which was extraordinary, truly a niente (to nothing).

We were once again in the choir loft at the back of the orchestra, so we couldn’t hear Mullova as well as I might have liked (especially when she was accompanied by fairly big tuttis), but she gave a wonderful performance. The orchestra was good, but not as tight as I might have expected.

The Brahms, long one of my favorite symphonies, was given a very good performance, Daniel very much in charge.

Harding does make noise while conducting (with outgoing breath especially at intense moments), perhaps not audible from the other part of the house, but very clear from where we were! This is an interesting problem for conductors, who don’t (or shouldn’t!) make noise when conducting—only the ensemble should! Of course, many musicians (Glenn Gould, Oscar Peterson) do make noise when playing. When I worked with the Seattle Symphony, Gerard Schwarz was also known for his vocal noises (not singing) during conducting. In recording sessions (where I was usually back with the producer and recording engineer), the producer could communicate to the whole ensemble in between takes with a speaker (“winds out of tune at G,” “we need better ensemble from the low strings at B,” etc.), but also with a phone with which he could talk to Jerry. Sometimes this was because of something more sensitive (dealing with a particular player, or a tempo that wasn’t matching up to previous takes), but also occasionally, “Jerry, you’re making noise again.” This is a difficult habit to break, since musical intensity and expressivity becomes closely associated with the noises—take away the noise and one doesn’t feel the same intensity.

In a roundabout way, this leads to my feeling that conductors need to learn a clear, pattern-based technique early on. Abe Kaplan told me once that when he watched Robert Shaw doing an a cappella work, where he used an unconventional conducting technique, his conducting was free and extraordinarily expressive. In the same way, in front of an orchestra, using a technique he’d learned much later in life, his technique didn’t have the same expressive intensity. Abe felt that Shaw’s expressive conducting (not pattern based) was simply so strongly learned that when he switched to a pattern-based technique, he couldn’t incorporate his expressive gestures into it. Perhaps those readers who worked with Shaw over a long period of time can say if they think this is correct or not.

As I mentioned in a previous post, one of my early experiences was with a conductor who was quite uncomfortable in front of orchestras, so I decided I wanted to have a technique that would allow me to do both equally well. For me, having worked hard on developing a clear technique, early on it was my struggle to be expressive as a conductor (that has to do with personality, too, of course). Later, with more and more experience, I gradually learned to be more and more expressive but still within traditional patterns (when necessary).

It’s not necessary, of course, to always work within a pattern. One of the most expressive conductors I remember watching was Sergiu Commissiona at Aspen in 1977 or so (he was best known for his work with the Baltimore Symphony). In a master class he told of how he began with a very strict technique and then, over the course of years, learned “what the orchestra didn’t need.” I feel if conductors absorb a clear and clean technique (able to handle all technical requirements) at the beginning, they can then learn to be expressive without losing the basis of their technique. More about this at another time, perhaps.

Another thing notable about Harding’s conducting technique (which is excellent and expressive) is that he does very little subdividing in slow tempos. That was something I learned from Gerard Schwarz as well. While I didn’t like Jerry’s conducting technique in general (his fast tempi had a quick rebound and almost a double ictus with elbow and baton), he rarely subdivided in slow tempi. This forced the orchestra to really listen and feel the underlying pulse. It was a great thing to learn—that sometimes not being “clear” can get the best musical results.

At any rate, fun concert!

Today was a fairly relaxed day, with Gunilla coming over during the afternoon for dinner and a visit (she brought some beautiful salmon and strawberries and we supplied the rest). We had a lovely time, as we always do when Gunilla is around. You may ask, “aren’t you staying at Gunilla’s apartment??” Well, yes, we are. Gunilla’s here this week to visit a few friends and is, of course, an invitee to Orphei Drängar’s big program this weekend. So, she’s staying with a girlfriend this week. She’ll come back on Friday and we’ll take the train together to Uppsala. It’s wonderful to have the time to catch up!