The Art of Conducting: When is Enough Enough?

I remember once in a conducting class trying something, a conducting gesture or an interpretive nuance of some kind, that wasn’t working.  My conducting teacher and mentor, Abraham Kaplan, waited patiently as I stubbornly kept plowing ahead with it.  Finally I gave up and he asked, “Why did you keep on doing that?”  With some chagrin and sudden wry insight I said, “Because I was in love with the idea.”  He grinned and then kindly but promptly turned my admission into a teaching moment for the entire class!

We conductors find it easy to fall in love with our ideas, our signature conducting gestures, our long-winded explanations, our interpretation of a number...our importance!  We tend to forget that a problem in rehearsal may mean that we are getting in the way, that we may not need to wave our arms or explain quite so much.  To quote the creator of the comic strip Pogo—sort of—the enemy is sometimes us!

None of us is immune, no matter how experienced we may be.  It takes humility, self-knowledge, and the ability to view ourselves with detachment—and humor—to recognize those moments.

So how do we tone it down?  How do we know when we are overdoing it?  When is enough enough?  That will vary with every situation.  No two choruses are alike, and even the same chorus can react differently from one rehearsal to the next.  And actually the same is true for a conductor!  But below is a video of a master conductor who judged that very, very little was needed.  Leonard Bernstein was famous for his grandly dramatic gestures, even leaping into the air at climactic musical moments.  In fact, I have seen Abe Kaplan, who prepared many a chorus for Bernstein and had plenty of chances to observe him, do the same thing himself!  But here, out of respect for the outstanding musicianship of his players, Bernstein took himself almost completely out of the way and let them make the music, with only the subtlest of guidance from him.

You couldn’t do this with every chorus or orchestra.  But it’s a partnership that is a pleasure to watch...and draw lessons from.

Dr. Linda Gingrich

Artistic Director and conductor

Master Chorus Eastside