Multiple Intelligence Monday 7: Interpersonal

Interpersonal intelligence is the capacity to sense the feelings of others and respond appropriately.  Of course conductors need this.  We work with people!  We are the leaders of a little community, making music together as a team.  The better we are at sensing people's feelings and responding in healthy and healthful ways, the better job we do.  

Is high interpersonal intelligence required?  Oddly, no.  There are a lot of stories of jerks who flail: mean, selfish, ego-centric conductors who treat musicians poorly. In fact, that's part of the stereotype of a conductor.  I have a theory that sometimes people revere a jerk because they assume that someone who treats others with disdain must actually be better than those other people.  Obviously that's just a theory, based on some early experiences of my own. 

These days, EQ, or emotional intelligence, is growing in importance.  People are realizing that treating people well is good for business, being a thoughtful and insightful leader is profitable.  It also makes better music.  And interpersonal intelligence is half of that.  So, more and more as time goes forward, high interpersonal intelligence is not required but highly desirable.

The other half of emotional intelligence is intrapersonal intelligence, to be tackled next Monday.

For now, I'll just mention the example of Gareth Malone, from The Choir.  I've been writing about that show, and I believe I've already mentioned Gareth's charm and enthusiasm.  He's also nice and pretty sensitive and that carries him a long way.  I mean, he's an okay musician and a pretty bad conductor, but those are musical and kinesthetic skills, which are only part of the picture.  The man's rocking the interpersonal intelligence and working it out.  

Check it: 

Sweet, right?  That kind of charisma can't be dismissed.  That's what makes it work for him.  And, the point of this whole multiple-intelligence series is to show how all these strengths can benefit a conductor, but that no conductor needs all of them as long as he knows what his strengths are and uses them to make it work.

And I'll get to that bit next week.

I sing the body electric

I love Walt Whitman.  Maybe it's the clarity and eloquence that convince me, but the content of his writing rings absolutely true to me.  So I'm going to fall back on him today.

O my Body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women, nor the likes of the parts of you;
I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the Soul, (and that they are the Soul;)
I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems—and that they are poems

Who can argue with Uncle Walt?

My sister recently got into trouble for chastising a blogger for writing about sex research with squeamishness.  The root of the trouble seems to be that many people think bodily fluids are gross.  In fact, it seems many people think bodies are sort of yucky.  Since writing about kinesthetic intelligence and dancing, then Tai Chi and the trapeze, and finally about performance attire, there has been a lot of discussion about bodies on my blog, too. And I've realized that I'm more okay with the complications of corporeality than some.

Women, particularly, and their bodies are an issue in twenty-first century Western culture.  Moving them, dressing them, feeding them, removing hair from them, everything.  It's complicated to have a body, keep it healthy, and stand in front of an ensemble and eventually an audience where they can all see you, and then use that body without inhibition to facilitate art.

So I'm a big fan of my body.  I need to be, in order to to my job well.  If I'm distracted by worry that I look fat or smell weird or have splotchy skin, I won't be able to embody the expressive intent of the composer.  So I've learned to embrace my strength and my flexibility, my belly and my curves, my height, my complexion, my hair, as well as the rude and inconvenient fluidity of circulatory, digestive, endocrine, and reproductive systems.  I am careful to dress this body to its best advantage whenever I can, so I can relax and have maximum confidence in it.  It can do anything I want it to: yoga and Tai Chi, singing and dancing, swinging on a trapeze, anything!  Exponentially more than the sum of its parts, in the end, my body is me--the chemicals that determine my mood, the electrical signals that keep my heart beating, the capacity to knit a broken bone back together: they are me.  I am amazing, powerful, and capable of anything I need.

So are you.

In 2001, in my first week at a new school, I asked my students if they agreed with the statement "Singing is a bodily function."  I sure as heck believe it is, but I also believe that a body isn't just meat and bones--it's also intention and expression and art.

As I said, I love my body because it's a necessity of my job--yet another thing about being a conductor that extends into the rest of my life, part of the meaning and humanity that it is to be a conductor.  I've tried and failed to express how amazing it is, so here's where I lean on Uncle Walt.

I know the poem is long, but do read it when you get a few minutes.  It's good for you.  You'll be so glad you did.  Then celebrate your messy, complicated, gorgeous self.

I SING the Body electric;
The armies of those I love engirth me, and I engirth them;
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the Soul.
Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves;	5
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
And if the body does not do as much as the Soul?
And if the body were not the Soul, what is the Soul?
2 The love of the Body of man or woman balks account—the body itself balks account;
That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.	10
The expression of the face balks account;
But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face;
It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists;
It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist and knees—dress does not hide him;
The strong, sweet, supple quality he has, strikes through the cotton and flannel;	15
To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more;
You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side.
The sprawl and fulness of babes, the bosoms and heads of women, the folds of their dress, their style as we pass in the street, the contour of their shape downwards,
The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through the transparent green-shine, or lies with his face up, and rolls silently to and fro in the heave of the water,
The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats—the horseman in his saddle,	20
Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances,
The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their open dinner-kettles, and their wives waiting,
The female soothing a child—the farmer’s daughter in the garden or cow-yard,
The young fellow hoeing corn—the sleigh-driver guiding his six horses through the crowd,
The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty, good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at sundown, after work,	25
The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and resistance,
The upper-hold and the under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes;
The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of masculine muscle through clean-setting trowsers and waist-straps,
The slow return from the fire, the pause when the bell strikes suddenly again, and the listening on the alert,
The natural, perfect, varied attitudes—the bent head, the curv’d neck, and the counting;	30
Such-like I love—I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother’s breast with the little child,
Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with the firemen, and pause, listen, and count.
3 I know a man, a common farmer—the father of five sons;
And in them were the fathers of sons—and in them were the fathers of sons.
This man was of wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person;	35
The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and beard, and the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes—the richness and breadth of his manners,
These I used to go and visit him to see—he was wise also;
He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old—his sons were massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome;
They and his daughters loved him—all who saw him loved him;
They did not love him by allowance—they loved him with personal love;	40
He drank water only—the blood show’d like scarlet through the clear-brown skin of his face;
He was a frequent gunner and fisher—he sail’d his boat himself—he had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner—he had fowling-pieces, presented to him by men that loved him;
When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish, you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang.
You would wish long and long to be with him—you would wish to sit by him in the boat, that you and he might touch each other.
4 I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,	45
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them, or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment—what is this, then?
I do not ask any more delight—I swim in it, as in a sea.
There is something in staying close to men and women, and looking on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well;	50
All things please the soul—but these please the soul well.
5 This is the female form;
A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot;
It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction!
I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor—all falls aside but myself and it;	55
Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, the atmosphere and the clouds, and what was expected of heaven or fear’d of hell, are now consumed;
Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it—the response likewise ungovernable;
Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands, all diffused—mine too diffused;
Ebb stung by the flow, and flow stung by the ebb—love-flesh swelling and deliciously aching;
Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of love, white-blow and delirious juice;	60
Bridegroom night of love, working surely and softly into the prostrate dawn;
Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh’d day.
This is the nucleus—after the child is born of woman, the man is born of woman;
This is the bath of birth—this is the merge of small and large, and the outlet again.	65
Be not ashamed, women—your privilege encloses the rest, and is the exit of the rest;
You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.
The female contains all qualities, and tempers them—she is in her place, and moves with perfect balance;
She is all things duly veil’d—she is both passive and active;
She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as daughters.	70
As I see my soul reflected in nature;
As I see through a mist, one with inexpressible completeness and beauty,
See the bent head, and arms folded over the breast—the female I see.
6 The male is not less the soul, nor more—he too is in his place;
He too is all qualities—he is action and power;	75
The flush of the known universe is in him;
Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and defiance become him well;
The wildest largest passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that is utmost, become him well—pride is for him;
The full-spread pride of man is calming and excellent to the soul;
Knowledge becomes him—he likes it always—he brings everything to the test of himself;	80
Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and the sail, he strikes soundings at last only here;
(Where else does he strike soundings, except here?)
The man’s body is sacred, and the woman’s body is sacred;
No matter who it is, it is sacred;
Is it a slave? Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just landed on the wharf?	85
Each belongs here or anywhere, just as much as the well-off—just as much as you;
Each has his or her place in the procession.
(All is a procession;
The universe is a procession, with measured and beautiful motion.)
Do you know so much yourself, that you call the slave or the dull-face ignorant?	90
Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight, and he or she has no right to a sight?
Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffuse float—and the soil is on the surface, and water runs, and vegetation sprouts,
For you only, and not for him and her?
7 A man’s Body at auction;
I help the auctioneer—the sloven does not half know his business.	95
Gentlemen, look on this wonder!
Whatever the bids of the bidders, they cannot be high enough for it;
For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years, without one animal or plant;
For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll’d.
In this head the all-baffling brain;	100
In it and below it, the makings of heroes.
Examine these limbs, red, black, or white—they are so cunning in tendon and nerve;
They shall be stript, that you may see them.
Exquisite senses, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition,
Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant back-bone and neck, flesh not flabby, good-sized arms and legs,	105
And wonders within there yet.
Within there runs blood,
The same old blood!
The same red-running blood!
There swells and jets a heart—there all passions, desires, reachings, aspirations;	110
Do you think they are not there because they are not express’d in parlors and lecture-rooms?
This is not only one man—this is the father of those who shall be fathers in their turns;
In him the start of populous states and rich republics;
Of him countless immortal lives, with countless embodiments and enjoyments.
How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring through the centuries?	115
Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you could trace back through the centuries?
8 A woman’s Body at auction!
She too is not only herself—she is the teeming mother of mothers;
She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers.
Have you ever loved the Body of a woman?	120
Have you ever loved the Body of a man?
Your father—where is your father?
Your mother—is she living? have you been much with her? and has she been much with you?
—Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all, in all nations and times, all over the earth?
If any thing is sacred, the human body is sacred,	125
And the glory and sweet of a man, is the token of manhood untainted;
And in man or woman, a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is beautiful as the most beautiful face.
Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or the fool that corrupted her own live body?
For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves.
9 O my Body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women, nor the likes of the parts of you;	130
I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the Soul, (and that they are the Soul;)
I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems—and that they are poems,
Man’s, woman’s, child’s, youth’s, wife’s, husband’s, mother’s, father’s, young man’s, young woman’s poems;
Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,
Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eye-brows, and the waking or sleeping of the lids,	135
Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw-hinges,
Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,
Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue,
Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and the ample side-round of the chest.
Upper-arm, arm-pit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones,	140
Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, fore-finger, finger-balls, finger-joints, finger-nails,
Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side,
Ribs, belly, back-bone, joints of the back-bone,
Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round, man-balls, man-root,
Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above,	145
Leg-fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under leg,
Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel;
All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your body, or of any one’s body, male or female,
The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean,
The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,	150
Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity,
Womanhood, and all that is a woman—and the man that comes from woman,
The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping, love-looks, love-perturbations and risings,
The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,
Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,	155
Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and tightening,
The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,
The skin, the sun-burnt shade, freckles, hair,
The curious sympathy one feels, when feeling with the hand the naked meat of the body,
The circling rivers, the breath, and breathing it in and out,	160
The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward toward the knees,
The thin red jellies within you, or within me—the bones, and the marrow in the bones,
The exquisite realization of health;
O I say, these are not the parts and poems of the Body only, but of the Soul,
O I say now these are the Soul!	165

Multiple Intelligence Monday 6: Musical

Musical-rhythmic

Musical intelligence can refer to rhythmic or pitch-related abilities, but there is no "music" center of the brain the way that language does.  Music is a whole-brain function, which makes musical intelligence complicated.  When you sing, for example, your brain might engage aural, verbal, and social areas. 

The cooperative nature of music-making is a whole other post.

Take this recent study about a very valuable musical skill, sight-reading.  One of the things it suggests is that success on IQ tests is like success at sight-reading--both rely on working memory, your capacity to keep stuff in your brain and use it as long as you need to.  Is working memory intelligence?  No, indeed.  Take my husband (please?), an excellent sight-reader.  He's also great with visual-spatial and mathematical-logical things, and all three of these strengths have been his since he was very young.  He also scores high on IQ tests.  However, as I have mentioned, he can't spell worth a damn.  And just last week ordered a margarita frozen instead of on the rocks, because it didn't quite occur to him which one was the name for the kind he likes.  It's very specific, this intelligence stuff.

Arright, so musical intelligence.  Edwin Gordon was a pioneer in studying and measuring musical aptitude.  One of the controversial assertions he made was that musical aptitude is fixed at age nine.  Importantly, he developed a musical aptitude test, which I took while a master's student.  I was a master's student in conducting at one of the most prestigious schools in the country and I scored right in the middle.  Average.  

It was completely liberating to learn this.  I've always loved music, wanted to be a conductor since I was in the eighth grade, but I've never been special at it.  Oh, I got good grades.  I'm good at school work.  But I've never been the solo singer or the best sight-reader or the fastest analyzer of chords.  As a matter of fact, I'm generally slower than everyone around me--people with really low musical intelligence don't tend to go into music, so my theory is that the average folks like me are actually the weakest in the room full of music students.  But it's okay!  I don't have to be gifted to be good.  I just have to know how to use my strengths and make up for my weaknesses.

And that's how I have become a conductor with average musical intelligence.  Work!  Yes, indeed, practice makes better.  If I were committed and interested, I could exercise and work up to run a ten-minute mile; but, that sounds quite unpleasant to me, so I'm not gonna do that.  However, I really love choral music, so I'll keep my butt in school and practice and work and try to do well.  Thousands of hours over the course of decades gradually leads to expertise, regardless of intelligence.  

I like to think of my mediocrity as a strength.  Having to work hard to learn means that I've learned how to learn, and that gives me a wide knowledge base of how to teach.  You know that old saying, "those who can do, those who can't teach?"  I think the truer version of that is "those who can do can't teach."  Because very smart, gifted people never had to learn how to do that they're good at.  If it comes naturally to them, they can't fathom why other people can't just do it.

I'm really good at diction.  I can pronounce the hell out of anything.  Sung diction, IPA, foreign languages, whatever.  And now I can teach it because I've learned that it's harder for most people.  Other people think singing in English is easier than singing in German.  Most of you probably agree.  I didn't understand that until about six years ago.  So you see, my intelligence was a kind of stupidity.  

And therefore, my mediocre musical intelligence is a strength.  Because my work depends on heavily on preparation, I can take all the time I need to get ready--and my awareness of my mediocrity informs me that I'll have to schedule more time for it than other conductors might.  

Musical intelligence is just one type of intelligence among many required for conductors.  Being able to hear melodies and harmonies, internalize rhythm with ease certainly makes life easier; and, probably the best conductors in the world will always be the ones with the highest musical and interpersonal intelligences.  But the rest of us stand a chance for success because hard-working mediocrity will trump static talent any day of the week.  

Whew.

Multiple Intelligence Monday 5: Bodily-Kinesthetic

Bodily-kinesthetic

This is good timing.  It's just a coincidence, but this week I am at Omega in Rhinebeck, NY, taking a week-long Tai Chi workshop.  Because it's important for conductors to be good at understanding and moving their bodies.

As I have said before, these intelligences do not represent fixed abilities or smartness, but rather strengths particularly relating to learning styles.  I'm sure it's obvious to you why kinesthetic intelligence would be important for a conductor, but I'll go ahead and spell it out.

A conductor's job is to embody the expressive intent of the composer.  Embody, as in put it into their body.  The easier it is to coordinate movement and attend to physical sensation, the easier the job will be.  Conducting is more like dance than anything else--you make gestures that express what the music expresses.  The difference is that conducting is usually leading the music and dance is more commonly following it.

Here I'd like to talk about training and aptitude.  On So You Think You Can Dance, dancers who are really good at one style are asked to do many other styles.  As far as my understanding goes, it is kinesthetic intelligence which will allow them not only to dance well, but to learn new styles quickly and be able to alter the character of their movements as needed.  Training can make a good dancer, and has certainly proven to be an asset on the show, but adaptability takes intelligence.  Trained dancers generally do better on the show, and there is the possibility that training can actually increase intelligence, but over and over, the untrained dancers amaze us with their ability to do new things.  


Speaking of amazing ability, here's Wade Robson when he was eight years old. 

I've never met an eight-year-old with that kind of coordination, balance, subtlety of movement.  It's just extraordinary.  Magical.  And when you're that kind of a dancer as a kid, you can grow up into this kind of choreographer:

I chose this of all the amazing videos of his choreography because he's also performing.  Wade is the dancer with the red gloves, the man in the front as they walk down the stairs.  Can you take your eyes off him?  I have trouble.  He's intense and sooooo specific and committed to every movement.  Seriously, I'm in awe.  Just go to YouTube and search for Wade Robson and start watching videos.  He's dreamy.  Of course, I'm particularly impressed because he's got musicality and creativity and expressivity to match the incredible physical skills.  

I have to talk about me, I suppose, because it's my blog and because this is an important thing to me, though any kinesthetic intelligence I have is trite in comparison to the above.  Still, I guess I can take comfort in the idea that I'm probably a better conductor then Wade Robson would be... though he's a better dancer than I am a conductor--oh, he's so good!


Anyway.  Me.  I have some training.  I took ballet as a kid, which many people can say.  But I did it for ten years, along with a few years of tap and jazz.  When I got to college, I started swing dancing.  I've danced socially, mostly, but I've attended classes and workshops aplenty.  I also have taken regular yoga classes, studied Tai Chi and Alexander Technique, and--oh, yeah--I'm a conductor.  I'm not gifted.  But I like it a lot, and I have some training.

I tell people all the time that if they want to sing, they can.  My sister says that any woman who wants to have an orgasm can.  It may take some practice, but interest and application unfailingly yield results.  I think the same must be true with dance.  I have no gift, but I have always liked it, and so I've invested time to learn.  I think that has built up my ability, and that translates to the physical aspects of conducting.  As a result (or possibly it's the cause?), I learn quicker when I experience things bodily.  If there is movement involved, my brain grabs onto it more quickly.  The act of conducting while I practice actually helps me learn the music more efficiently.

And now, because I'm too lazy to make an actual video montage but I feel compelled to entertain you, a photo collage of me dancing and doing goofy things demonstrating the influence of much dance training in civilian life (with apologies to the siblings who must inevitably be exposed with me):

Variously, pictures of ballet, musical theater, lindy hop, and two demonstrating my inability to stand still and just have my picture taken like a regular person.  I tend to pose.  It's a habit.

Multiple Intelligence Monday 4: Logical-Mathematical

Logical-mathematical

Musical ability and mathematical ability have been linked in studies for decades.  I wish I could say I rock at numbers and logic, but I just don't.  I sort of feel like I let my sex down in this way--it's just too typical for "girls" to be "bad at math," but it's just a fact for me.

An example of deficiency in action: I considered doing a PhD instead of a DMA, which would have required me to take the GRE.  In preparation, I took a practice GRE.  I didn't prepare for it at all, just did it to see where I stood.  I don't remember the exact score on the math portion, but I think we calculated that whatever it was meant I got one question right.  I remember I was in the 1th percentile.  99% of people who took that test on that day did better than I did.  Now, that's measuring me against engineers as well as English majors, so I'm not gonna cry about being in the bottom 1% of graduate students.  But I did honestly try.  I mean, I might have just guessed the answers--chance would probably have been more likely to give me correct answers than my actually trying.  I'm not sure though, because figuring that out would require calculating probability, which baffles me a bit.

I got a friend, a physics teacher, to tutor me.  He taught me how to take the test.  I learned very little math, but I learned test-taking strategies and some short-cuts.  I don't remember any of it anymore, of course, but it did result in my ending up in the forty-fifth percentile when I took the real  GRE.  

Forty-fifth percentile, even among graduate students, is nothing to brag about.  Especially since I worked for months to prepare--and I made huge improvements--but still really just did average.  That shows you how little potential I have.  I joke, "I'm a conductor: I can only count to four!"

I don't know how my conductor friends and colleagues fare on math tests, or how their math skills are.  Since so many studies have linked math and music, I can't help but imagine that it makes musician's lives easier if they're also naturally inclined towards math and logic.  Frankly, my perspective is deeply skewed by my total... I was going to say ignorance, but it goes deeper than ignorance.  Not only do I not know, I'm not even really capable of knowing.  So I don't know what I'm missing.  I know it takes me forever to analyse chords and to figure out rhythms, both of which involve mathy, logicy sorts of skills.  I know for a fact that every other conductor friend is better than I am at these things.  Better, faster, more accurate.  The only thing I can do is practice, take my time, and be aware that I stink so I can make up for this deficiency.  

Luckily, I hope, those skills are the ones that a conductor uses in preparation.  So I can make up for it on my own, before rehearsals even start.  Once I know my score, I can get on  podium and be okay.  Unless there's some other math-music connection that I'm missing.  Which there very well might be.  In that case, I'm still in school so hopefully my teachers will let me know.

Multiple Intelligence Monday 3: Verbal-Linguistic

Verbal-linguistic

There is where I  kick booty.  I remember vocabulary, I can spell, I'm really good at grammar, and I can pronounce the hell out of anything.  I've gotten compliments on my diction in four languages, though I really don't speak any foreign languages beyond "I'd like a beer" (which I can say in seven languages!  It used to be eight, but I can't remember Turkish anymore.  Too foreign.).  It's why I blog: writing comes easily to me and I enjoy it.  


This is important to me as a conductor for two reasons.  First, I have to talk to the ensemble, and the ability to use words to be understood is highly valuable, though not imperative (since obviously gesture is supposed to be doing most of this work).  Mostly it's good for me because, as I'm preparing, I choose words to describe sounds.  Once I have a word to describe a sound, I understand the sound better.  Because words have a lot of meaning to me.  Because I have high verbal intelligence.  It's a self-fulfilling sort of situation.

The other reason verbal intelligence is important is particularly because I'm a choral musician.  Words are important, and I love them!  Certain composers--Bach, Brahms, and Barber are my favorites in this regard--are even better than poets at using the sound of a word to illuminate its meaning.  I appreciate that about them, and I'm good at using it, and I'm even good at teaching that kind of thing to choirs, making them use it.  So, the point is it's important and I'm glad to have that one.


But that brings me to this point: intelligence is not fixed, and even if it were, that would be okay. 


My husband (sorry, dear) can't tell an IPA symbol from a hole in the ground, and cannot spell worth a damn.  Is he then fated never to succeed as a conductor? Of course not.  He can, if he chooses, invest time in preparation of text so that he might bring it out more, use it with greater efficiency.  As long as he knows it's an option, he can use it.  He may have to spend more time than I would in order to accomplish it, but it will eventually happen.


And at the same time, if he just never was interested in the text like I am, that would be okay, too.  He will always hear music differently than I do, because the sounds of the words will have greater significance to me than they ever will to him.  That doesn't mean he's bad at it, it just means his performances will be different from mine.  And that individuality is good.  Specific, personal perspective is exactly what a performance should have (in my opinion).  His choices are the ones I want to hear.  I'd love to argue with him over how the whole piece would be much better if only the choir uses a long aspiration on the final "th" of the word death, and he won't give a rat's patoot, but that's why art is so fabulous!  We don't have to agree!  


And I'll get into that a bit more tomorrow.

Multiple Intelligence Monday 2: Visual-Spatial

Visual-spatial

Visual-spatial skills have been linked to sight-reading ability in orchestra musicians.  Before I read this particular research, I already knew that my husband is an amazing sight-reader and he can pack more in the back of the Forrester than I could ever imagine possible.  And after I read the research, I wondered if my really quite mediocre visual-spatial aptitude and really quite mediocre sight-reading skills are related.


We're thinking of buying an elliptical machine.  Would it fit in the back of the car?  I have no idea!


Clearly, the awareness of the page, and the ability to sort out what's on it, is an important ability for a conductor.  I'm not so good at these as my husband, and my training is primarily choral, so I have a dickens of a time working with instrumental scores.  Visually, the page is so big, there's so much on it, and it's spread out so far, that I just have to spend a lot of time before I'm able to wrap my ears around it.  


And this brings me to the point I will make with all the multiple intelligence posts, and which I will also be making tomorrow: knowing one's weaknesses allows a conductor to compensate for them.  And how do I compensate for my total lack of a knack for seeing the page?  


Preparation.


I spend so much time with my score that I don't really even have to look at it to know what's on it.  I know the music so well that the notes on the page are just reminders of the sound in my head rather than instanty instructions of what the sound should be--which is, I understand, how really good readers see music.  


Preparation.  More on it Thursday.

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.

Na'vi

I haven't seen Avatar.  


I know, you can mock me later.  


My understanding is that the Na'vi have this thing where they say to each other "I see you," and being seen is a big deal.  Recognizing a person's value, their self, is powerful and important.  I just wrote about the responsibility of a conductor to humanity, and there's this huge movie that talks about valuing each individual's humanity... or Na'vi-ity.  Which is awesome.  And apparently everyone's seen it, except me and this guy:


The conductor of the Richardson Symphony Orchestra (have you ever heard of them?  Me neither.) of Richardson, TX, Anshel Brusilow, apparently had a kind of hissy fit, berating the orchestra for complaining about not getting paid.  


At the Minnesota Orchestra Blog, I find someone who agrees with me that conductors have a responsibility to honor the humanity of the musicians in the ensemble.  Sarah Hicks says that, though there was a time when conductors could hire and fire on whim, "this behavior is no longer considered normal or even appropriate."  Lord, was there a time when this behavior was considered normal or appropriate?!




According to his bio,  Brusilow's only actual training as a conductor was when he was a teenager, fully sixty years ago, which means his training is pretty spare compared to folks now who get DMAs in conducting before they get appointed to a position like that.  I do believe that people who actually specialize in conducting don't generally act this way.  "This" way being that which is more appropriate for someone who is blind because their head is buried in their own nether regions.  


There's Manuchehr Sabhaii in Tehran (Tehran!), who quit in part because the management was treating the musicians poorly.  His response was not "I'm so good that I'll put up with BS" but rather "I'm too good to tolerate an organization who doesn't have the same values that I do."


I do believe I've already written about this.  Training and artistry, vision that complements that of the organization.  Responsibility to humanity that we may be, you know, people.

I think a conductor should side with performers over management if a contract is not honored by management.  But even if the conductor thinks that management isn't too badly at fault and wants the musicians to be patient with them, he shouldn't speak to the orchestra with that kind of snide disrespect.


Unlike Brusilow, most us can't live for a year without getting paid.  If he doesn't need to complain about it, that should make him an advocate for the rest of us!  That's what we owe each other in this life--to care for others when we are healthy, to fight for others when we are strong.  When he tells them to "wake up" and "get a life," he clearly doesn't see them as human beings.  Because they do have lives.  Which is why they need to get paid!    


James Cameron and I need to sit down with this guy and give him a good talking-to.  

it's no secret

I like John Terauds' blog because he writes about musicianship like it's a way of life.  Which it is.  I appreciate any blogging about conducting, and I enjoy the headline:

Empowerment the secret ingredient to happy results from conductor and orchestra

He has, in fact, hit the nail on the head (one of the nails, anyway) when he identifies empowerment, but allow me to quibble--er, I mean, clarify:

It's not a secret.  And it's not just a new generation of conductors who do this.

Jeffrey Renshaw, the wind conductor at UConn, played a DVD for his undergraduate instrumental conducting class.  It showed clips of different orchestras with different conductors playing some of the "Overture" from Candide.  A wide variety of interpretations were represented, and the penultimate example was Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic, in which he did his funky, odd-looking conducting, and the orchestra played the pants off the piece.  It was clearly the most lively, interesting, richly-textured, dynamically varied performance of them all.  The final example was of the NY Phil playing after Bernstein's death.  It was the same piece, but the conductor's podium was left deliberately empty in tribute to him.  It was even better than the performance with Bernstein on the podium.  Bernstein's gift--one of his gifts--was getting each player to give as he gave, to engage in every moment of the performance with artistic integrity.  It's what they do as solo artists.  Without a conductor, that's what these amazing professionals did as an ensemble.

Another mentor of mine, James Jordan, widely published author on choral conducting, has written even in his earliest books about the individual responsibility of each member of the ensemble to make music independently.  Specifically, he has described how being in a large group tends to make a person feel like he or she doesn't have to be responsible, since there are all those other folks to share the load.  That natural inclination to abdicate to the whole group is a problem all conductors combat, and always have.

"I can't crawl inside your head and make the music for you," I tell my college singers.  "You have to be musicians!"

John Terauds mentions a "long list of very successful and respected tyrant-micromanager conductors."  I have a theory about this.  One might get the impression that those conductors are "successful and well-respected" because most arts administrators and audience members don't know enough about conducting to recognize that tyrant-micromanager conductors aren't actually all that good.  If you ask a professional, specialist conductor (Dr. Renshaw or Dr. Jordan, for example) his opinion about a conductor on that "very long list," I bet he won't gush about success and respect.  He wouldn't bad-mouth a colleague, but buy that conductor a drink and promise him confidentiality, and he may shrug his shoulders and say, unimpressed, "enh.  He's okay."

Further, I suspect that these tyrant-micromanagers find success by playing on people's ignorance.  It's easy for people assume that if you are condescending and snobby about how much you know, then you must know more than they do.  If you treat other musicians with disdain, then it must be because you are better than they are, right?  And because conducting is such an esoteric field, few people know enough to explain or contradict.  Beware the unpleasant conductor!  He (there are so few prominent women conductors that it's just statistically more likely to be a man, though a woman has all the potential to be unpleasant that a man does) may be hiding his own insecurity, if not incompetence.  Also, so many undertrained conductors are on podiums that audiences keep getting exposed to mediocre conducting, with no one openly telling them "no, that's not what conducting is supposed to be!"  The guy on the podium must be what a conductor is.  Right?

Not necessarily.

There's a difference, and I'm glad to have this blog to explain it to anyone who wants to know.  Of course, my perspective isn't the only legitimate one; it's just the only one I've had time to write about so far.

So, to John Terauds I say: "you're right!" (well, more specifically, "I agree," which, of course, is the same thing as far as I'm concerned): humble, collegial, inspirational conductors are superior conductors to tyrant-micromanagers (in my opinion.  Because the resulting performances will be more colorful, vibrant, and alive with the artistry of each performer's deepest humanity!).  However, they aren't a new thing.  We've been around as long as there have been conductors.  I'm working to debunk the myth of the jerk who flails, and I thank you for giving me the chance to explain it better.

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.