expletive deleted

Language.

I don't swear much on the blog, mostly on the off chance that someone who wants to employ me reads it--I don't want people thinking I use language carelessly on the podium.  On the contrary, my use of language on the podium is very, very careful.

It began in my childhood, when our family sat around the dinner table having a grammar lesson.  Yes, really.  Grammar was the most common single topic of dinner table conversation during my childhood.  I can't remember any other single topic that came up with any regularity, actually.  But we talked about grammar on many occasions.  Anyway, I remember asking at one point "who decided which words were bad?"  And it was simply put to me that there are some words that just aren't said "in mixed company."  I then had to ask what "mixed company" meant and the conversation meandered from there.

Since then I have learned a little more about the history of words and language, and I now subscribe wholly to the idea I had all those years ago that there are no "good" words or "bad" words.  They're all just words.  Of course, in professional situations, there are expectations that one will use a certain level of decorum, and vocabulary comes along with that--rather, a lack of certain vocabulary.  It's not so much that you're expected to use certain words as it is that you're expected not to use certain words.  Right?  So I don't swear much on the blog, being as it is about my work and therefore sort of professional.  Ish.  But I don't have an editor and I don't conform to a formal style (only in my absolutely stodgiest papers do I adhere to anything like an academic tone).

On the podium, the use of language is a major concern, particularly for choral conductors.  Working with singers is a bit different from working with instrumentalists, in that singers' instruments are biologically hard wired to their imaginations, so any ideas I implant in their minds will come out in their voices.  Peace and joy are important for healthy singing, so choral conductors can't be assholes or their choirs will suffer.  That is to say, the singers will either internalize the bad stuff and their singing will get worse, or they will disconnect from the conductor and lose the maximum of their capacity to perform as a unified group.  So, besides simply using professional, non-offensive language, there is a whole universe of vocabulary selection that goes on in a conductor's mind.

It's complicated, you see.  Yet another level of requirements of a conductor that doesn't get included in the public imagination when they think of the baton, the wild hair, and white tie and tails.  Like the guy in the video below.  I included him way back in one of the first posts, "Jerks who flail."  He conforms to the stereotype nicely, with just the little surprise of the language.  And that's why it's funny.

I'm sure you figured it out already, but when you watch this, turn the volume down if you're someplace where the salty language might worry someone.