convenient controversy continued, and other alliteration

A few weeks ago, I began a conversation about the role of a conductor in expressive leadership, and it has continued.  I've been trying to sort out exactly what the difference in perspective is, and I think I've got it.

I still don't think there's any controversy.  My perspective on the blog, and in the "Thoughtful Gestures" article, is of a conductor who can count on the performers to know how to be expressive of their own accord.  When I taught high school, yes, I spent lots of time having my students journal and tell stories and use emotion memory to discover how to be expressive, but on the blog I take it for granted that the ensemble already knows how to do that--like the NY Phil--and talk about how a conductor facilitates it.

I think the issue is not a wrong paradigm, but two paradigms: 

• One that should change, which exists at the level of students and amateurs, in which beginning singers are barely taught to sing with healthy technique, much less with authentic expression, so their desperate and often under-trained conductors try to impose expression on them.  I hate to characterize anyone in my profession this way, but the truth is that there are lots of people conducting choirs who have very little training, or poor training, who still have to resort to this.  
• And the ideal, which already exists at the highest level of professionals, in which a conductor models expressivity and can count on the members of the ensemble to share in the expression, giving of themselves in performance as the conductor does.

Could and should amateurs and students do it, too?  Absolutely!  I try my damnedest to get mine to.  But that's a teaching skill, important but mostly separate from the "thoughtful gesture" conducting skills.

I have seen bland, boring choirs lead by bland, boring conductors.  That's the conductor's fault--he didn't ask for humanity, so he's not gonna get it. 

I have seen exciting, expressive performances by choirs with no conductor at all.  That's because they learned somewhere else that it's their job to be expressive of their own accord.

I have seen exciting conductors trying desperately to conduct amateur and student choirs as immobile and leaden as oceanic mud.  I see it that a lot.   That's a shame.  That's the conductor's fault because he needs to teach them how.  But that's not an issue that I've addressed.  Yet.  

I have seen choirs of experienced professionals and/or well trained students lead by emotionally invested conductors.  Most of what I talk about on the blog is why this works.  

So, basically, I think there's no controversy.  We all agree.  The last paragraph of my "Thoughtful Gestures" article says, "we don't just need to train more highly skilled musicians to get better performances."  That means we do need to train more highly skilled musicians, get them really comfortable with performing as independent artists, but that's not where it stops.  Teaching performance skills, a separate thing that I haven't written about, is a step in the process which precedes the rest of what I talk about.  


What I have written about thus far is, after we've accomplished the task of training more highly skilled musicians, we can get to the next level of unifying expression by connecting with each other beyond conscious choice.  Connect to deeper human instincts so we're not just making music in a group, but as a group.