What We Wear Wednesdays: What Women Want

In this, "What Women Want," the fifth and final installment of What We Wear Wednesdays, I'll finally be discussing the thing that I was trying to say when I started writing about the question of performance attire.  How women dress in general is a major question and a huge industry.  How women dress for formal occasions is even bigger.

I have already bemoaned the wedding gown as an aberration from the old, standard, traditional rules of dress.  The wedding gown is most women's only chance, besides a prom dress, to dress truly formally.  And prom dresses are wasted on eighteen-year-olds who are more interested in a dress that reinforces their identity than actually wearing a gown that is a well-made piece of formalwear.  Prom dresses are made to be disposable, and they make me kind of sad.  It also makes me sad to see wedding gowns going the same way.  Young women, especially, in the final throes of adolescence, tend to put a lot of stock in their wedding gowns as expressions of their identity rather than something pretty that flatters their figures and is a nice article of clothing to wear on a special occasion.  This isn't taking over weddings yet, but all those bride shows on t.v. seem to be exploiting this trend.  It worries me.

Anyway.

For those of us who perform, formal attire is part of our wardrobe, not a once-in-a-lifetime concern. Being such, it has sparked some conversation.  My friend Allegra and I have been discussing this for years, and here, at last, is the conversation we've always threatened to have.  What should a woman conductor wear?

I'll just say here that I object to women in tuxedos.  I think it's a sop to old school feminism where women have to be masculine to appear professional and powerful.  Since it's not 1983 any more, I won't wear trousers as formal wear.  I prefer the traditional nature of skirts; and, I like to think my femininity is, itself, professional and authoritative.

All these strong opinions mean I need to put my money where my blog is.

Oy.

History of my wardrobe choices for occasions black tie and up.

1995: my prom dress--the black empire style with silver beads.  It was from Goodwill and cost, I believe, $7.  (My sister is in green.  The pose is a very long story, kind of a family joke.)

Another real-life formal dress.  When I was a bridesmaid, I bought a cocktail dress from Ann Taylor I actually could wear again.  On sale, of course.  Magically, it matched the bride's chosen David's Bridal "Apple Red" exactly and has the benefit of being made of silk instead of the stiff polyester of all the David's Bridal options.  I wore again it at Christmas for church, and I've conducted a performance in it with a fitted black cashmere cardigan over top.

On to some performance attire.  2005, in grad school, when performance attire for the choir was "jewel tone gown," I got a prom dress--cheap to suit a grad school budget.  The poverty of a professional artist is another barrier to quality performance attire.  Ironic.  And, last year, when the requirement was "all black," and it was a summer matinee, I wore a black cotton maxi dress.  I'm so glad they're trendy now.

 

Neither of these is conducting attire, though.  What do all of the above have in common?  No sleeves!  Have you ever tried to find a formal dress with sleeves that actually looks like someone under sixty would wear it?  Usually, all you get are grandmother-of-the-bride-looking boxy beaded jackets over frumpy polyester.  Yuck.

My first solution was, like the cardigan over the bridesmaid dress, a beaded chiffon bolero over a sleeveless black taffeta gown that was already in my closet.  I think it worked pretty well.  Pretty high-end black tie, leaning towards white tie because my compatriot conductor was in tails.

Last year, I bought a white-tie gown.  A real one.  Silk lined in silk.  The picture below doesn't look as good as it does in real life--the seamstress took it in her shop while I was trying it on to make sure the hem was the right length, very amused and telling me to pose when she discovered I was a conductor.  Also, she had tucked up the portrait collar type wrap-across thingy to experiment with being able to move my arms best.  I decided later that it was better with the collar all the way out, which is more flattering and didn't reduce the movement at all. 

Anyway.  

Sorry the picture stinks, but it lets you know the basics: it's a real gown, made well enough to be seen by grown-ups at close range and not look like a costume, it has sleeves and a floor-length skirt (shoe-length, according to the seamstress, but we'll call it floor-length) that's not poofy, and both the skirt and bodice have tailored construction.  Nothing flowy or billowy.  These were the main requirements.

Last Christmas, I wore a black velvet top with long sleeves and a floor-length chiffon skirt.  This is not a white-tie outfit, but as you can see, the men in the choir are wearing sport coats and grey dress slacks, so according to the rules, I only need to be in black tie.  Plus, it was a 3 p.m. performance, so I barely needed that.  Another crappy picture, sorry.  But you get the idea.

And that's all I've got.  

Whew.  

So, I do not want a flowy, shapeless dress.  Nor do I want a suit.  I want a feminine, structured, flattering dress with sleeves.  And so, here's what it's like to shop for one:

After eliminating everything without sleeves and anything that has major structural elements that are simply not flattering on my particular body (high necklines, trumpet skirts, etc.), I get a list of dresses that are ugly, matronly, dated, frumpy, boring, cheap-looking, impractical, very impractical, or too expensive. 

And then, eventually, there's one.  

It's feminine, structured, flattering.  It has sleeves.  It's not made of a natural fiber, but it's on sale!!!  And they only have it in sizes 2 and 4.  If you sew a 2 and a 4 together, I might be able to get one leg into it...

*sigh*

What women want: apparently, the impossible.

the choir, begun

So, The Choir finally broadcast its first episode on BBCAmerica.  I am sort of disappointed in it, and I'm gonna blog about it, as promised.

First the things I really do like:  Gareth is young and enthusiastic and he genuinely and passionately believes, as I do, that community singing is good for people and should be available to everyone.  His beliefs are powerful and positive and I totally and wholeheartedly agree.  The things he says are true and wonderful and lovely.  And his enthusiasm makes it real for the singers he recruits.  That's great.

In fact, Gareth does a lot of things right.  He wants to bring classical music to the masses, but he uses pop music as a gateway (one of my complaints about Glee is that real art is nowhere to be seen, but Gareth, while he acknowledges the challenge of getting newcomers inside classical music, is interested in art).  He teaches competently, and is a sweet guy who clearly wants what is best for the kids he's working with.

But.

He's trained in musical theater, basically.  He does not have, so far as I can tell, training as a music educator much less as a conductor.  And that shows.  I'll wait until I see more episodes before I get specific in that regard, so I'm not judging based on just five minutes of edited rehearsal footage.  But, I have written over and over again on this blog that many things are required for success in conducting.  Gareth has most of them.  The thing he lacks is the most undervalued of all: training.  It is the thing most conductors lack, frankly.  I mean, speaking of community choir conductors and church organists and the well-intentioned people who get into leading choirs because the choir needs a leader and they have some musical training, so they get sucked into conducting.  That's Gareth's story, too. And it's a shame.  Because some training could really benefit him and his singers.

There's more.  Besides, Gareth's lack of conducting training, there are some reality problems with the show.  The words that follow are the responses of my husband, with whom I agree, but who is probably more entitled to these opinions than I am:

My administration's never given me support like that.  They don't think I'm a boon to the school--just a distraction from the real curriculum. [The principal and other administrators do not even attend his performances, in which three hundred students participate and a thousand family members make up the audience.]

I'd like to see him do that without a camera crew and the carrot of a free trip to China at the end.  

Of course all those parents are thrilled to see their kids in choir: they don't have to spend eight months fundraising to send the kid on a trip to go sing.

Okay, now I'd like to see him do that every day for twenty years. 

And so on.  My husband has done it every day for twenty years.   He takes his auditioned Chamber group on  tour every year, to Europe every other year.  They fundraise.  They get grants from the town and from local businesses.  They have a booth at the Harvest Moon Festival on the town green every fall.  They purchase music and perform two concerts every year, plus singing at the elementary schools, Memorial Day ceremonies, etc.  They sustain a program, playing the long game.  They sing quality repertoire--Faure and Mozart!--in addition to some gateway pop.

I already wrote my ode to music teachers.  I have to say, my strongest feeling after watching the first episode of The Choir was that it cheapens what those professionals do.  I mean, I know, it also celebrates the value they bring because is showcases how powerfully music affects the singers, how the experience touches them.  But to celebrate the fast-and-furious, short-term success of a one-off season just doesn't take into account the marathon longevity of a career music educator.

Maybe he'll talk about that later--about establishing a program and maintaining it.

But, in the absence of that acknowledgement, I found it hard to watch.  But I found reflecting on it interesting.  So I'll keep it on the DVR and write about next week, too.

Dudamel

Gustavo Dudamel has been on t.v. and in the news lately, having just begun at the L.A. Philharmonic, which is a pretty good gig.  People are amazed--this man doesn't look like a conductor!  He's not white or old and his hair is curly!  The PR machine likes him because of that--oooh, diversity!  He's controversial because people are excited about him, and then critics ask if it's hype.  "Are we just excited because he's not a stereotype?"  (Those reviews were from Philadelphia and Chicago, respectively.  The hometown L.A. paper's response to them and their like is basically "thppbt.")

It is a problem of ignorance.  The general public don't know much about conducting, and they have some assumptions about what it is, what it means, what conductors do.  Hopefully they'll start reading my blog and begin to understand, and then critics won't be in charge of telling us who is an artist and who is a product of PR hype.  Until then, I can only persistently repeat myself.

Have you seen Ratatouille?  It's the cg animated movie about a rat in France who loves to cook.  I really like it.  The moral of the story is told to us by Peter O'Toole, who plays a food critic (Ahem.  A critic.), named Anton Ego.  The moral is that "not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere."  It sounds best when Peter O'Toole says it at 1:26.



Immediately following this moment in the movie, Anton Ego is punished for his "defense of the new:" he loses "his job and his credibility" when the health inspector condemns the restaurant for having rats.  It's okay, though: he invests in the rat cook's new restaurant and the great work goes on in a less high-profile venue.

I also love the moment in the beginning of this clip when Anton Ego, the critic, takes his first bite.  They show what it feels like in the moment that you are moved, touched by art.  Their depiction of that experience rings deeply true to me.  It leads me to believe there were people working on that movie who had a real sense of the importance and power of art both high-profile and small-scale.  And it's amazing that they work on a big, huge movie like Ratatouille so that masses of people can see and hear about that power.

Dudamel knows that power, too.  He is passionate and his passion is contagious.  This is a YouTube clip that made the rounds a while back:



I wrote about emotional contagion last week in order to set up this post.  Dudamel has infectious energy.  He's charismatic, which is a notion I started writing about yesterday.

His interpretations are neither nuanced nor subtle, but they're dramatic.  He takes risks, such as artists take, by putting his work out into the world for us to judge.  That's impressive.  If he's not a consummate artist yet, well, he's twenty-nine for heaven's sake!  I wouldn't want a newspaper reviewing my current work--I feel pretty good about my work, but I'm aware that I'm still what they call a "young conductor" and I see how much I have to learn before I become a conductor like the really great ones.  Dudamel's got fire and passion and gets people excited about going to hear art music!  I'm all for that.  The sophistication will come with age and maturity.  And maybe he'll take his audience with him.  If that doesn't happen, oh well.  It's just music, no one dies if the woodwinds are a little sloppy or the string tone lacks richness.  I say, let's celebrate the attention and use it to have conversations about art and expressiveness.  Instead of saying, "it's not good enough," let's say, "it's interesting," "my experience of it was..." and "here's what we might do with it!"

Because it's just art.

It's the most important thing human beings do on this earth, but it only benefits us.  Bad art never hurt anyone, mediocre art can be accessible and useful, and great art has lifted souls like nothing else can.  Let's have it all!

click

There is a culture of devotion to ensemble music-making.  Band geeks, choir kids, community choir singers who devote hours to fundraising.  I write about it in the "Thoughtful Gestures" article, how entrainment unites ensembles into passionate, powerful bodies.  But there's an added dimension to that, and that is devotion not just to the ensemble, but to the conductor.

I don't think this is true with professional ensembles.  Professionals do not necessarily connect with their fellows over the experience of music-making because they do it a lot, and the level they have to reach in order for that to occur increases with their experience.  I'm talking about amateur ensembles and school groups.  

When I was in the seventh grade, my junior high school choir director left and we had a new one for eighth grade.  In the tenth grade, the high school choir director (who had been teaching for so long, he had been my mother's high school choir director!) retired and we got a new one for eleventh grade.  Right before I started college at the University of Delaware, the choral director left and I was at UD while they searched for his replacement.  I taught at two schools, and at both I replaced a choral director who was beloved.  My first year at Westminster Choir College was the year after Joe Flummerfelt retired, so I was there while they searched for his replacement.  At the University of Connecticut, I am currently assistant to two interim conductors, waiting for them to search for and hire a permanent Director of Choral Activities.  (If you  know anyone who's looking for that kind of position, pass the word along that they'll have they best doctoral assistant ever!)

The point of that history is that I've seen transitions at every level from many perspectives.  I've seen kids nearly worship a choir director, love him, weep over his leaving.  Singers, especially adolescents, can easily feel bonded to a conductor--more easily than with a math teacher, I would venture to guess.  And today I'm asking, "why?"

I subscribe to Whole Living Body + Soul magazine, though I object to the duality suggested by the name.  I think Self gets it right with the title, but actually tends to be about bodies, not whole selves.  There is an article in this month's issue about the book Click: the Magic of Instant Connections, which I think makes a step towards explaining why singers, especially amateurs, feel connected to their conductors.

According to the book, reported by the article, the "recipe for clicking contains five ingredients: proximity, vulnerability, resonance, similarity, and a safe place."

All this happens in an ensemble.

Proximity, because, yes, we rehearse together.  Duh.

Vulnerability--this is where I think the gap lies for professionals, because they are well trained and therefore feel less vulnerable as they perform.  Most amateurs, especially singers, are relying on the conductor to help them learn both what to perform and how to perform, and that reliance can make them feel vulnerable.  A conductor's job is to make them comfortable and confident enough to perform, which means the conductor steps into their vulnerability, embraces it, and then provides them support and strength.  It's a powerful act that creates a bond between conductor and singer as well as among the ensemble.

Resonance is described in the article as "tuning in to others' emotions."  I'd have to read the book to get a clearer picture (or maybe Emily will pipe in with some details) but if it has anything to do with sharing a common emotional experience, then singing in an ensemble will provide it.

Similarity is kind of a given: everyone there loves to sing.  Or play, if it's a band, but my inclination and the majority of my experience is with singing.  Additional similarity beyond that is gravy.

A safe place.  This is so important to conducting.  Creating a safe place to be expressive and emotional, and to sing (which scares the willies out of a lot of people!) is a huge part of my job.  The love and support and guidance and encouragement I give isn't just me being nice, it's making the choir sing better.  They feel better so they sing better, and that serves the composer and the performers and the audience.  The article described a safe place as anywhere "that separates you... from the rest of the world."  Choir is exactly that.  When high school kids come to choir, their other world is left out in the other parts of the building.  I've seen so many instances where students behave entirely differently in choir than they do in any other class--usually much better for me than for other teachers.  

No wonder people feel connected to their conductors.  No wonder it's emotional and challenging to lose a conductor, and difficult to replace one.

The the heading of the last paragraph in the article is DARE TO DISCLOSE.  It continues, "when you chance a little intimacy, perhaps by sharing something that you're currently struggling with or a personal anecdote, you make yourself vulnerable and give the other person something to respond to."  I have a whole set of other reasons for conductors telling true stories about their own lives, which I write about in the "Thoughtful Gestures" article, and I'll have to talk about later here, but this is a another one, related to the social, communal responsibilities of a conductor.  Good conductors are comfortable with themselves, with their flaws, and are content to be themselves, in all their imperfection, in front of the ensemble. 

One of the reasons I say that conductors have to live a life that is conducive to their profession--that you can't be a composer and then expect to get up and conduct as well as an actual conductor--is that you can't get up in front of an ensemble and lead them anywhere for anything unless you feel pretty good about yourself.  If you feel self-conscious or insecure, you won't be very effective.  Self-knowledge, self-awareness, and self-love are fundamental necessities for conductors.  They're important for everyone as human beings, but a conductor can't do his job without them.

I think this might add to the mystique of conductors.  As singers are considered "divas" for taking care of themselves the way they need to in order to maintain the health of their whole selves that is required for them to sing as well as they can [must write post on opera singers!], a conductor could be an interesting creature off the podium.  There are no stupid conductors.  I've never met a shy conductor.  Most conductors are highly verbal and are easy in conversation.  The quality of their listening varies--not surprising since in our work we're nearly always the one talking/leading/in charge.  

The magazine article says the ability to "click," to provide all the social ingredients for connection, is a set of skills to which some people ("high self-monitors," which is yet another thing I'll have to go into separately at another time) have greater natural inclination than others, but that can also be taught.  

I wonder if clickers tend to become conductors, or if the process of learning to be a conductor happens to teach those skills.  Probably a combination of the two, don't you think?

conductor down

I just read about this, though it happened last week.

Gustavo Dudamel "pulled a muscle in his neck... heard a loud pop and lost sensation on one side."  Dude.  The man is younger than I am, and already pulling muscles!  I told you a conductor is an athlete!

Alas, the price of passionate artistry is high.

"maestro"

I got a t-shirt for my birthday a couple of years ago that says MAESTRO on it in a sort of Broadway playbill style font.  I think it's funny, so I wear it to the gym and, as below, when I romp my dogs.

Maestro is an Italian word that translates literally to "master."

A Google search tells me that it's derived from the Latin magister, which means teacher, tutor, or master.

And magister is derived from magnus, which means great or mighty.

All of these, sayeth the Great and Powerful Goog, are derived from the Proto-Indo-European root meg, which means great.

The leader of music in church used to be called the maestro di capella (the more familiar German term is Kappelmeister).  And maestro is short for that.

But why do we call a conductor "maestro," even when he no longer has anything to do with the chapel, much less master of it?  My opera singer friend  John tells me that it's an American thing.  Europeans don't address a conductor as "Maestro"--though certainly in our consciousness, we imagine obsequious violinists shaking hands with a man in white tie and tails, lowering his head and saying "Maestro..."

Opera singers, by the way, have a harder job than conductors do.  Opera singers are amazing people, and they will definitely get their own post some day.

In the meantime, why do we call a conductor "Maestro?"

I don't know.

It used to be common for composers to be conductors.  It was also common for composers to be teachers, so it would make sense to address a teacher as "Maestro," just as you might address your yogi as "Guru."  And why would we, in 2010, do  that?

I don't know.

Perhaps because conducting is such a mysterious art form, practiced by so few, deeply studied by even fewer, that we maintain a specialized title for members of a specialized field.  Further, perhaps we enjoy thinking of the conductor as someone apart from everyday life.  The Maestro.  Or, in my case, Maestra.

This is not the most informative post I've written, but I have looked for answers and no one seems to have examined the issue because the practice is taken so for granted.  If anybody else has an explanation, I'd love to know.

responsibility to humanity

I recently told someone that I believe pharmaceutical companies deserve to profit from new drugs they develop.  I think research is undervalued, and people who discover and/or create something new should be rewarded for their contribution to humanity.  I have personally benefited from pharmaceutical interventions, and I'm grateful to the companies to did all of that expensive research to come up with the drugs that helped me.

I'm grateful.  I appreciate (by both the American and British definitions of that word) the original work that went into the development of those drugs.  The final product was of value to me, so I'm willing to exchange money in return for what they provide.

However.

I want to believe that the individuals who do that research, who run those companies, feel about their work the way I feel about my work: that the only reason to do any work in the world is for the benefit of humanity.  I want to believe that someone who runs a company that makes billions of dollars every year will not just feel obliged, but will want to give back to the world, so that people who are unable to give much money can benefit from their work as much as those of us who have the capacity to pay what it is worth.

I'm a conductor.  I don't make anything useful.  I don't save lives or feed the hungry.  I'm an artist.  I provide a service, sort of, but it's not one that puts roofs over peoples' heads or ensures clean water in the developing world.  The risks I take are personal, philosophical ones--which aren't risks at all, compared to the risks taken by guys who fill potholes on highways.  We need those guys.  I'm grateful to those guys.  I'm content to pay taxes so that the government can pay them to do it.  They do it to profit from it, to take care of their families; but, I hope they also feel good that they make our lives better.

A conductor has a responsibility to humanity, as do all members of the human race, to use their work to benefit others.  Maslow's heirarchy tells us that, once food and shelter are provided, human beings have a need to express, create, and connect with others.  Conductor's don't address the essential necessities at the bottom of the pyramid, and frankly sometimes I have some guilt about that.  People are starving, but I make music!  Still, we do provide access to the top of the pyramid.  And even people who are just barely making ends meet will benefit from an opportunity to sing with others, or to hear great music being made.  Struggling to survive can sap your spirit, but art is nourishment that can refresh your humanity.  I hope that my work does that for someone someday.

I think people need to take care of one another.  I think that's the only reason any human beings are here on this planet, and that no matter what occupies our time, we all have the same purpose.  Conductors need to provide an environment of physical and emotional safety and support for their ensemble members, so that they feel free to make expressive music that touches audiences, so that the members of both the ensemble and the audience benefit from the uplifting, enlightening experience of great art.

My immersion in art makes me want to share my gifts with others; it has made me a more complete human being and inspired me to seek my fullest humane potential.  I hope that others feel the same way.  I suspect that if everyone got to experience art the way I do, they would have the same reaction I have had.  So I aim to bring my art to as many people as will let me.

tax deductible massages

It's Mother's Day, and one of the many things my mother taught me was to do my own taxes, and--if I itemize--to deduct professional expenses.  Thanks, Mom!

Making music as a conductor, singer, or instrumentalist, is inescapably physical.  After I started having neck/shoulder pain that interfered with my work, a massage therapist who happens to sing in my community choir suggested that a massage might help me.  Boy, was she right.  I'm working on Alexander Technique and yoga and Tai Chi in hopes that I can learn to use my body as efficiently as possible so that I don't build up to the the kind of tension and pain that is possible; but, my lifestyle of doctoral-student-with-multiple-jobs isn't conducive to the kind of holistic realignment I really need.  So I get a massage every four to six months, just to straighten me out.  It makes all the difference in the world.  

I find that massage provides physical improvements as well as psychological ones.  The muscles get untightened to free up my gesture, and my mind gets a chance to detox as well.  I just had a massage on Thursday, and my church choir can attest to the difference it makes.  Last week, I was a grump (which I almost never am!) and this week I was just about back to normal.  They put up with me last week, thankfully, but they really do sing better when I can be in a worshipful place with them.  The end of the semester at school helps with that, too, but I can tell you that the massage, and the fact that I took time for it, put my brain back into more regular rhythm.

I haven't had the gumption to claim massages as a professional expenses on my taxes, but honestly, I couldn't do my work nearly so well without them.  

training and artistry

For most people, music is fun, a hobby, entertainment.  They don't lead others, so they don't understand what it takes to lead others, and it would never occur to them that special training might be required.  And so they hire their accompanist or the section leader to be their conductor.  Sadly, the odds are slim that an excellent accompanist or singer is also an excellent conductor, yet those who hired him or her have not read my blog and therefore don't know enough about conducting recognize lousy conducting when they see it.  Worse still--and this a problem that makes me want to put on a cape and intervene for the good of the world--the members of the ensemble don't know enough about conducting to recognize lousy conducting when they see it.  Those poor singers, suffering under the flapping elbows of a flute player who thought she could conduct because, hey, how hard could it be?  You beat time and cut them off, right?  


Oh, the humanity!


I've spoken before about all the things a conductor is.  They need more than musical skills: leadership, pedagogy, the physical skills required to make clear and expressive gesture, etc.   And yet, the really important thing for any conductor is to be an artist.  Conductors who lack training might still be excellent if they are thoughtful artists.  But imagine how effective they could be if they cleaned up their gesture, learned something about teaching, watched some videos of themselves on the podium to see how others see them...


Excuse me while I fetch my cape.


Okay, here's me saving the world a little bit--
To anyone who is hiring a conductor: look for someone with training, and look for artistic vision.  (It helps if you have established an artistic vision already.)  If you can find a conductor with lots of training and artistic vision that jives with yours, hire him quickly and pay him well!  Trust in the value of training.  Expect your leader to be an artist who will bring inspiration to every rehearsal.


To individuals who are conducting ensembles but have little or no training (I mean YOU, church organists!): get thee to a summer workshop!  You will be sooooo glad you did.  And so will your ensemble.

batons

In the public consciousness, a baton is part of the definition of a conductor, along with crazy grey hair, white tie and tails, and wild arm flailing.  A description of a performance might say that an ensemble played "under the baton of so-and-so."  In reality, some conductors use batons, some don't, some do both.  Certain pieces, or movements of pieces, may call for a baton and others for hands.  In case you can't imagine conducting without a baton, here's me in a short clip I created for the "Thoughtful Gesture" paper presentation on campus (which is the reason for the odd annotations).




It seems to me that longer batons were standard about fifty years ago, as used by this satirical jerk who flails, but you don't see these crazy long batons much any more.  This one seems to be about twenty-four unnecessary inches long.



I have been a non-baton person for most of my career, but recently I've taken it up again and I must say I prefer it.  The major benefit for me is that it creates an additional hinge, requiring less work for my shoulder.  I object to the potential phallic power symbolism of a baton, but the ease and flexibility it offers is really quite nice.  For example, it allows me more possibilities in subdividing beats because tiny gestures can be perfectly clear at the tip of a long, slender baton, when they might be more difficult to see in my short, soft hands.

I should talk about subdivision some day.

The baton I use most is a small, twelve-inch natural wood one.  It's an unusual baton.  Most batons are white--convenient because they show up in a dark performance space.  I have a sixteen inch white baton that I used back when I was conducting musical theater more often.  But for my usual gig on a well-lit stage, I like the near flesh color of the wood.  It seems more organic, less stick-ish.  It's also shorter than average: fourteen inches is closer to average, and sixteen is common.  When my conductor friend Matt rolled his eyes at my twelve-incher, I said, "What?!  It's cute!"  He said "sure, for you, but I'd look downright silly holding that."  He's right.  He's six-foot-five, and proportion matters.

I should talk about proportion some day.

Back to some baton basic facts: wood is the most common baton material, though it's often painted white.  Most baton handles are wood, though you can get them in a lightweight metal from some companies, and others make a cork handle, which is also good for preventing oxidation in that bottle of wine you didn't finish.  A good quality, expensive baton will be balanced like a knife, where the handle weighs about the same as the blade (shaft), so that you don't feel the weight of it in your hand.  It won't warp quickly, though eventually it will probably develop a curve that's weird and distracting and you'll have to replace it.  So some batons are fiberglass.

So, should a conductor use a baton?

Maybe.

Last week, I attended the performance of the University of Connecticut Symphony Orchestra, directed by Dr. Jeffrey Renshaw.  About a hundred measures from the end of the final movement of the Chaikovsky Fifth Symphony, the tip of Dr. Renshaw's baton caught in the binding of his score, sending the baton end over end onto the floor in front of the second violins.  He shook his head to himself (probably the only people in the audience who noticed this were the other conductors) and finished the piece with his hands.

My musicologist friend Heather came to my office to read me Arturo's Baton, a children's book in which the brilliant conductor Arturo loses his baton and doesn't know what to do.  (SPOILER ALERT!)  Somehow, it doesn't even occur to him until the last three pages that the baton isn't the conductor, he is, and that he'll do fine without it.  Which he does.  Then he finds the baton in his sock drawer or something.

Should a conductor use a baton?  Yes.  Except when he shouldn't.  Or doesn't want to.  Or loses it.  Or flings it across the stage by accident.

The point is, the baton doesn't matter.  But it's a nice option.

Maestro Bernstein

The image at the top of my blog is of Leonard Bernstein, composer, teacher, conductor, and generally extraordinary artist. As a conductor, he is famous for his expressiveness unbridled by technical restraint. Thanks to YouTube, I can let him speak a little for himself:






Anything I say about him or what he does feels a bit trite, but I must say that my goal as a conductor is to be that kind of artist.  Some day.

Bernstein heard truth in music, perceived expressive intent with great clarity, and was able to embody that intent completely and fully, with his whole self.  He sort of has a reputation as a jerk who flails because his technique is so wacky and funny to an outside observer.  Certainly there are criticisms to be made of his interpretations, but I'm simply in awe of him. I think his interpretations are romantic because he feels things that way.  Is it objective musical truth?  Nope.  It's subjective, Bernsteiny, intimate, personal truth.  A performance by him has compelling perspective. Right or wrong, I don't know, but deeply moving because it is him, his humanity.  As in the clip below, he gives truthfully of himself without fear or apology and it's powerful.


The orchestra is playing the pants off of that piece.  As much sound as they can make, as much intensity as they can play, they are giving it to him.  The intensity of his giving compels them to do the same.

Which is why he's in the picture at the top of my blog.  When I say "thoughtful," I mean considerate as well as cognitive, perceptive as well as well-planned.  His gesture speaks to his ensembles and to us because it is the truth, and the truth has an unmistakable ring to it.

This is the most subjective post I've written so far, and the most controversial point I will ever make.  Bernstein has his detractors, who think he imposes himself on the music.  I think he makes art.  He connects his humanity to his work, and that's what I think it's all about: meaning, music, and conducting.

jerks who flail

I started out by saying that the thing about conducting is that people don't know what it actually is.  Still, the image of a conductor is kind of captivating: the maestro, the one who's in charge and makes it all happen! Perhaps the mystery is part of the appeal.  Conductors are popular as characters and metaphors, saturating pop culture with abundant examples of misconceptions.  Perhaps I'll spoil the mystery for people, and then they will no longer feel compelled to depict conductors in the ways shown below.  I've never seen a fictitious conductor who was a great conductor.  Instead, I have observed, fictitious conductors tend to be jerks who flail.

Below are some samples of t.v. commercials featuring conductors--I might add, I have never met a real-life conductor who was as bad as any of these.  Even my undergraduate students, first time on the podium, do better than this.

Is this really how the world thinks we look?  Or are non-conductors also aware that this is horrible, bad, completely unrealistic conducting?


In an Olay ad, this woman might win an award for most attractive conductor if she didn't flail quite so wildly.

There are some good things here--women being depicted as the conductors of orchestras, for example.  Hurray for that!  Also, women seem to be depicted less like jerks than men, although these particular woman are no prize (can't set up a music stand?!).  But look at what actors do when they are supposed to be playing conductors.  Ugh!  The flailing of arms, the flapping of wrists, the reachy straightness of elbows, the clutching of batons, the frequency with which gestures linger above their heads...

And, seriously, "magic wand?!"  Bleagh.


There's another that's on locally that features a very young woman in a suit, she is a sales rep at a home store, and the simile is that she's like a conductor because she puts together all your appliances and flooring choices into a harmonious renovation project.  Her technique is wretched.

Of course, these are little commercials with tiny budgets, but actors playing conductors appear in movies (The Money Pit, Prince of Tides...) and big t.v. shows (Law and Order) and these are not only jerks who flail, but often flamboyant European jerks who flail.  Here's one of those in a commercial (content warning--there's some salty language, but how he says it actually made me laugh out loud, so I thought it was worthy):

I wonder if they hire a consultant to coach the actor in conducting.  And if they do, how do I get that gig?!

A third-screen jerk who flails:



And finally, one that's so incredibly well crafted and purposefully bad that I love it to pieces--particularly the little dance at 1:55.


I think that I, as an actual conductor and someone who has dabbled in acting, have a unique appreciation for just how much preparation went into this.  For Rowan Atkinson to conduct this poorly, he had to know the music stone cold, practice the gestures like a dancer to ensure that they reflect the character of the music, move with emotional intention, unify gesture with feeling and sound...  wow!  Also, he's kind of saying, "what if a conductor really were just a jerk who flails?" then answering the question in the most absurd possible way.  And his asking that question implies that he knows that that's not all there is to it.

Thank you, Rowan Atkinson!

So, this is what popular culture thinks conductors are.  It is inaccurate, of course, or I would be done now.  I'll be spending the rest of the blog explaining what conducting actually is, and perhaps why this stereotype exists. My personal view is that conducting is work that opens a window to the best parts of our humanity, so I'll try to demonstrate that, too.

In the meantime, here's Victor Borge's explanation.  He talks about what a conductor does, assuming that you already know that a conductor is a flamboyant European jerk who flails.