The Art of Conducting: Struggle, Achievement, Learning, and Music Choices

I heard a fascinating piece on NPR’s Morning Edition on Monday about a few of the differences between Western & Eastern education.  It seems that, in general, Eastern education tends to view the struggle to learn as a strength, while the West tends to view it as a weakness.  Smart students don’t need to struggle, is apparently the Western perception!  Here’s a link to the piece.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/11/12/164793058/struggle-for-smarts-how-eastern-and-western-cultures-tackle-learning

The story does not advocate Eastern over Western education; in fact, it’s clear that there are strengths and weakness in both systems.  But it set me thinking about how this applies to the art of conducting, especially in programming concert music.  The story notes that Japanese teachers consciously design tasks that are slightly beyond the ability of their students, precisely so that they will struggle to learn, and thus grow.  That is what I have done with my choruses for years, set the bar just beyond their reach with a few pieces so that they struggle, learn, and grow as musicians.

This applies directly to a piece Master Chorus Eastside will perform at our March concert, Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine, by Eric Whitacre.  The work imaginatively recreates Da Vinci’s dreams of flight and his struggle to create a flying machine.  It’s a difficult piece—a rewardingly toothsome challenge for professional choirs but a real stretch for an all-volunteer chorus—so we started rehearsing it in September.  We first performed it about five years ago, and it took us eight months to begin to come close to mastering it.  They are learning faster this time around, but the same challenges remain: intonation problems, holding their own in tone clusters (a pile up of multiple notes just a half- or whole-step apart), unusual rhythms, layers of divisi within sections (in the opening measures the sopranos are often divided into four parts!), the need for great expressiveness, for example.

Is the struggle worth it?  I have programmed some easier works as a counter-balance, and they will sound fabulous as they sing them.  Should I always program easy works so that they always sound fabulous?  But then, how will they grow as musicians?  How will they experience that sense of struggle leading to accomplishment?  And how will I grow as a conductor if I don’t give myself a challenge?

The singers apparently think it’s worth it.  They were extremely proud of themselves five years ago, and have been chomping at the bit to perform Leonardo again.  So I’ve taken them up on that!  It’s a risk, but together we struggle and grow, achieve and learn, and in the process, we too take flight—just like Leonardo!

Dr. Linda Gingrich

Artistic Director and Conductor

Master Chorus Eastside