bland ambition

I'm postponing Multiple-Intelligence Monday so I can write about this article from yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer.


I have mentioned before that I was born and raised in Delaware, which made Philadelphia my home city.  Doing my master's at Westminster just reinforced that.  So I keep up with Philly things.  I like David Patrick Stearns' writing and classical music criticism in the Inquirer, but this is one article that makes the conductor in me cringe.

Buried in the middle of the article is this telling paragraph:

Few professions are as glamorous and artistically fulfilling as conducting - but only for a select few. Many others labor quietly in semipro orchestras or educational institutions. And far more sink into complete obscurity; a young conductor can land a prestigious master class with a titan of the podium, yet never be heard from again.

Glamorous?  For almost none of us.


But artistically fulfilling?  For almost all of us.  "Laboring quietly" isn't quite how I'd put it.  I doubt any ensemble member would describe his conductor as laboring quietly.   


Before I expound on this idea, I'll mention how interesting it is to read an outsider's perspective on the career path of a conductor.  Conducting is an esoteric profession, but very public, so people don't know how little they know about it, you know?  Anyway, it's interesting to hear this take on conductors and ambition, seeking chances "for advancement," and on how success can be determined by "alchemy:"

Philadelphia legend Eugene Ormandy's inability to manage complex time signatures might have barred him from a major career today. Yet in his time, he achieved results by projecting complete authority, without which even well-equipped conductors might fail to impress musicians, leading to telepathic wars of the wills.

So why would any sensible person want to conduct? 

I've dedicated many posts to all the many skills and personal attributes that benefit a conductor, and the question of musicianship vs. leadership is well settled, I think.  So, we can see that conductors conduct because it's not just their work: it's who they are.  Everything in your life is about your work, and you are your work. And the more you are your work, the better your work will be, and the better your life will be.  But this only works for people who are made for it.   I think.


That paragraph is kind of a mess, but I think you get the picture.


A few other indications that  David Patrick Stearns, the author of the article, isn't a conductor, include sentences like:

his conducting manner can turn on a dime. For choral groups, his batonless hands are fluid, almost balletic; for Beethoven, the baton is wielded. When the music-making goes awry, he'll flash a smile at the offending section, which somehow corrects the problem immediately. He doesn't confront difficulties as much as circumvent them with strategy. "You won't go flat if you're thinking through the entire phrase," he told the New Amsterdam Singers at one recent rehearsal.

Oh, the misunderstandings, the things conductors take for granted that all conductors know, yet journalists glom onto as explication of the mystery.  I've already discussed how batons are an option most conductors can take or leave, depending on the circumstances.  But there's also the fundamental necessity of a conductor to be able to express an unlimited variety of musical content.  It's his job, so he'd better darn well be versatile.  And, yes, with pros, all you have to do is acknowledge a mistake and they fix it on their own.  If not, then the problem is probably a larger-stroke, bigger-picture musical one such as phrasing.  These are not mysteries or special gifts; these are the mandatory minimum skills of all conductors, trained into them and/or learned through experience.


Sigh.


Let me get back to the ambition thing, because that's not just a matter of not knowing what conductors know, it's a matter of perspective on what and who a conductor is.  It seems that the standard set for a successful conductor in the article is like saying the standard for success as an actor is being a movie star.  But there are thousands of actors putting food on the table and raising families whose names have never been heard by most people.  You don't have to lead the L.A. Phil to call yourself a successful conductor.  Lots of amazing conductors are college professors, lead community bands, teach school, and minister to congregations.  


The article opens with this:

The romanticized image of the symphony orchestra conductor - arriving by limo at a grand music hall to inspire effortless beauty before thousands - is a world away from young Geoff McDonald's catch-as-catch-can career.

Right.  The romanticized image of an actor arriving by limo at the Academy Awards is a world away from the vast majority of professional actors' catch-as-catch-can careers.  From my career.  And, actually, I've never had the image of a conductor arriving to a performance in a limo.  Am I too close to it to be so deluded?  


Do people really think conducting is glamorous like that?  Like in the Depend commercial where they are impressed the conductor does her own make-up?  Of course she does her own make-up!  She doesn't have a dresser, either.  Even in opera, where you really do need stage make-up, only the stars in pretty expensive productions have their make-up done for them.  









Mmmhhh.... sooooooo glamorous...


Anyway.


Maybe half a dozen conductors in the world have a hired car deliver them to their performances.  The idea of glamor may come from the prevalence of white tie (discussed here in so much detail!), but really, it's just work.  It's also art.  Do you need the glamor to have the artistic fulfillment?  Hell, no.  Those professors, leaders, teachers, and ministers I mentioned above experience a lot of artistic fulfillment.  *I* do.  That's why I do it.


I doubt there is a conductor in the world who does it for glamor or prestige or even power.  If they do, then I bet they're not as good conductors as the rest of us who do it because it's who we are.  We conduct because making music is addictive, participating in performance and facilitating art are too wonderful to quit.  Too fun.  We do it because we can't imagine ourselves being happy doing anything else.    


Ambition is an option.  We can try to become conductors of major orchestras--someone's got to hold those jobs, right?  But that's not all that conducting is.  The artistic fulfillment is what it's about.  We can find that with amateurs, semi-pro ensembles, students, and congregations.  It doesn't require fame and fortune.  Most of us aren't seeking fame or fortune.  We are seeking artistic fulfillment; and we find it in the repertoire and in the people with whom we perform it.


Ahhhhh.  This is why I blog.  Because I "labor quietly" with choirs in a community, a church, a school.  I keep reading articles like this one that miss the point of what I do, and I'm thrilled to have this resource to say what conductors all know but no one but a conductor has a reason to know.  Not many will read it, but at least the other side of the story is out there, available.


Yes, a conductor is a leader, so it's easy to think conductors must be ambitious.  But conducting is not about power, ambition, or glamor.  Artistic fulfillment, though.  Bingo.  Yep.  Absolutely. 

expletive deleted

Language.

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

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

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

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

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

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

found it

I'm very sorry about the sound.  I recommend turning down the volume.

I mentioned this video among the other conductor commercials, but I couldn't find it on YouTube.  Then, tonight, in the middle of a House re-run, there it was.  So I rewound the DVR, pointed my camera at the t.v., and shot.  Cheesey, but fast.  So, the sound is horrible.  Sorry.

Anyway, it's just one more in a long line of commercials depicting conductors with no understanding of what a conductor actually does, which reflect society's general view of conductors and conducting and therefore partly explains my need to have this blog to put the correct information out into the world.  My version of correct information, anyway.

Enjoy.  With the sound off.


p.s. they say it's like composing a symphony, but they show a conductor, not a composer.  ?!

cartoon conducting, the first of what I suspect will be a series

Just as conductors appear in commercials and movies, they make appearances in cartoons.  A lot of appearances in cartoons.

For an easy synopsis of how a conductor should appear in a cartoon, Bruce Blitz says he should be a determined mad professor with a baton:



Sesame Street knows they have to make each character very clear, so they adhere strictly to those guidelines.



Tex Avery agrees that the hair, the tuxedo, and the baton are the most important attributes to identify a conductor, as you can see at 1:58 below.  Then at 5:53 the singer sees that the hair has gone missing and therefore recognizes the conductor to be a fraud.  In between is three minutes of alternately very funny spoofs and indefensible racial stereotyping.  Enjoy.



Elmer Fudd has a slightly less kempt approach.



I was raised on Bugs Bunny, so I'm not saying he's not funny, but this is not his best moment.  Poor guy thinks he's supposed to conduct every note.



"In the name of dignity and art, put yourselves in a receptive frame of mind."



And, finally, apropos of nothing except that the animal orchestra reminded me of it, a hippo singing:

Glee. *sigh*

I don't like Glee.  It doesn't have much to do with conducting--at least they don't try to make the guy a conductor!--but it's related to the Mr. Holland post, so I'm just gonna get it off my chest.

Some caveats:
Jane Lynch, who plays the cheerleading coach, is hilarious in everything she does.  A Mighty Wind.  Forty Year Old Virgin.  Two and a Half Men.  She even played Julia Child's sister in Julie and Julia and was subtle and funny as could be.  I mean, she sat next to Meryl Streep and was subtle and funny!  I love her to pieces.

Also, the guy who plays the teacher is, apparently, an actual singer who can sort of dance.  He performed on the Tony awards... I can't remember his name or what year it was and I refuse to look it up, but honestly I was so surprised and impressed I posted about it on Facebook.  Something to the effect of "Amelia Nagoski Peterson is surprised and impressed that the guy from Glee can actually sing!"  To which all my Glee-loving friends replied, "see, I told you they were talented people!"

Which I never denied... it's just that--

Wait.  One more caveat before I explain.

I've only seen, like, four episodes.  When they first advertised it, I thought, "hm, that looks like it could be good" so I set my DVR to record it.  I watched the first episode and was unimpressed, then watched parts of episodes after that and decided I didn't like it.  I deleted the DVR timer.  But then I found that many, many of my musical friends had been seduced by the show, drawn into its cleverness, wit, and musical numbers.  So I tried to watch, both so that I could try to see what they saw, and also to discover an explanation for why it irritated me so much.

So, with that said, here's my issue:

It's like with Mr. Holland's Opus, in that the teacher (whose name I don't know--I don't know any of the characters' names.  If you watch the show, you know who I mean; if you don't watch it, it doesn't matter anyway) actually teaches math or something.  He does Glee Club after school because he loved singing in high school and, although he, himself, has had NO TRAINING SINCE HIGH SCHOOL!!! wants to give the opportunity to the students.  Nice sentiment, generous desire, deeply misguided.

First of all, is there no music teacher in the school?  I've never seen one.  What the hell is up with that?

Second of all, since when does singing in a high school choir make you qualified, ten years later, to lead a high school choir?  I took math for years in high school, but not since.  Even if I had loved it, I would never, never, never say "these kids here at the school where I teach music should have the opportunity to experience math.  I should volunteer to lead an after-school math club!"  That would be ridiculous.  Everyone would say, "but, Amelia, you're not qualified to do that.  Let's hire a math teacher."  But in the show, a math teacher volunteers to lead music, and no one blinks. Because music's easy.  Nothing to it.  Anyone can do it.  And to prove it, we have a group of misfit kids whom he leads to glory.

Speaking of "glory."  Their performances aren't bad for what they are.  As a Broadway/pop style show choir, they do well.  But, really, is that the only music in the school?  I have no objection to show choirs or to singing pop music in school if it's balanced with a curriculum of high quality art repertoire that teaches something more than notes and rhythms.  History, culture, our connection to all of humanity.  Maybe the kids in Glee learn to connect with each other through the fun experience of singing together, but there's the potential to connect with so much more and they're missing out on that.  Why?  Because their teacher is underqualified.

Also, let's talk about one particular performance on the show in the middle of last season.  It was by a group from a girls' juvie, I think.  They sang some R&B song, I think, and the choreography basically replicated sex acts.  It was supposed to be sexy and amazing, like a rap video or something.  And all the characters we're supposed to like were worried that this group was going to get the big award because the judges were so impressed.

It doesn't work like that.

The girls in that choir should not be learning to display themselves as sexual objects.  And the show should not be promoting that kind of behavior.  Real judges would never, ever consider giving them any kind of big award.  We'd shift uncomfortably in our seats for a while, searching for words to explain the problem, and deduct points for appropriateness or something, and try to encourage their director to find repertoire that teaches a more universal kind of love.  Or something.  These are teenage girls for heaven's sake.  It's not impressive, but rather completely repellent that they would be grinding on the stage singing about how they are desired by everyone in the audience.

Awful.

So, to sum up: the show bothers me because it settles for the lowest possible level of education, repertoire, and artistic experience.  It's supposed to be about how this teacher guy loves music, but all he loves is the superficial fun.  He doesn't know enough to understand that there's much, much more to it.  It's nice that he loved singing as a kid, and if he wants to sing in a group to stay connected to that in his adulthood, GREAT!!!  But if he's going to pretend to teach kids, he's cheating them.  He doesn't know enough to provide a real opportunity to the students.  But the problem isn't just with that character: that underlying assumption of music-as-fun cheapens the whole show.  It cheapens music.  It cheapens teachers.  The show would redeem itself to me completely if, in the end, the students and the teacher discovered together that, for example, Bach expressed great truth about humanity and the performance of art music provided them with a powerful experience learning and making music together.

Because music--especially music in a school--while it should and can be fun in exactly the addictive way they portray on the show, is supposed to be about art.  It's supposed to be about the big picture.  And no amount of witty dialog or Beyonce parodies can add up to that.

In my opinion.

Which is not, as you can tell, even slightly humble.

Next week, I'm going to post about things I like because all this ranting and complaining isn't as much fun as raving about Bernstein or science.

Mr. Holland

I do not like Mr. Holland's Opus.  Mr. Holland would and should get fired for letting a kid get on a bus to New York.  Mr. Holland is a crappy conductor.  These fundamental problems ruin, for me, any redeeming value the movie might have, but they are not the end of the problems.

Ha!  I'm watching the YouTube video below and my husband just asked from the next room, "What are you watching?"

"Mr. Holland's Opus," I confessed.

"Why?!" he replied, baffled.

"Because I'm writing about it for my blog."

"About how stupid it is?  Because the governor of the state couldn't keep his job?" he groaned.

"Mmmmyep."



Look, Richard Dreyfuss is a great actor--amazing and moving and real.  I like him a lot.  But his conducting is crap.

I adjudicate festivals and competitions, and I have seen some bad conducting of school ensembles.  Mostly it's by art/English/drama teachers who got drafted into teaching music, then into directing the choir because the administration says, "hey, anyone can teach singing!" and the poor teacher doesn't know enough about it to argue, and they don't have any training or preparation, so they're coming at it, like Richard Dreyfuss, with the best of intentions, but a total lack of actual understanding of their job.  Yes, I've seen crappy conducting, but I've never seen a real band director conduct as badly as poor Mr. Dreyfuss.

There's the leaning, the knee bouncing, the fact that his hands cross in the middle of his body, the lift of his elbows on every beat four.  A two-minute conversation with anyone who has taken an undergraduate conducting class or even just a week-long summer seminar in conducting would have supplied him with training enough not to make those fundamental mistakes.

If I look a little deeper, I see that this may be an accurate choice by Mr. Dreyfuss.

More than anything else, Mr. Holland irritates me because he is a composer who needed a job and got sucked into teaching band.  He got hired, though he was not actually qualified to do it.  He does the job, even though he has no actual training.  So of course his conducting is crap: he never studied conducting!  Everyone around him just took for granted that because he was a musician, he could conduct.  As if clear communication is taught alongside Roman numeral analysis.  As if expressive gesture is taught alongside the ear training.

So the problems with movies like this aren't just the surface inaccuracies, but the deep underlying assumptions about the nature of the work of teaching and conducting.  Namely, that conducting is something every musician can do, and that leading music requires no skills different from participating in music.

Where do these assumptions come from?  I believe that people simply don't know any better.  They observe conductors, so they think they have seen something, but all they have done is make assumptions.  How could they possibly know differently (unless they, like you brilliant people, read my blog)?  And, in ignorance, they make movies where the main character conducts a full instrumental ensemble in front of a cheering crowd, even though you have spent the whole movie telling us he's not a conductor and was never interested in being a conductor.

I recently told a roomful of people that conducting isn't just what I do, it's who I am.  I think that makes me typical for a conductor, and I think it's why we're good at it.  Because the work we do isn't just our job, it's about using ourselves as expressive vehicles.  That requires your whole self to be engaged in the act; it requires your whole self to be healthy and capable of giving--James Jordan calls it "perpetual emptying of self."  And that means you can't just get on the podium and do it, you have to live a life that allows you to do it.   A composer who conducts will conduct poorly.  A violinist or a section leader who gets suckered into leading a rehearsal isn't going to be as good as someone who is a conductor.

Mr. Holland tries to convince us that conducting is an independent skill that can be whipped out when it's needed, and tucked away when you're doing your real job.  Well, I suppose it can be.  But you'll end up conducting like Mr. Holland.  And... eeeww.

So.

To the filmmakers of the world:
Please keep making touching, moving movies about music teachers.  We love our music teachers, and we want to show the world what they do to benefit our lives.  Please honor them by valuing the training that is required for them to be successful! Thank you very much.

Sincerely,
ARNP

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.  

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.