Conducting and Common Sense

Comments

1. Louise Rose says

   March 26, 2010 at 3:35 pm

   Hello, Liz,

     Thank you for initiating this important and vital discussion.  In my years (40+) of working with/for and attemptiing to challenge and engage those who make music(?) for a living, I often find myself saddened that a ‘perfect’ performance seems to be the goal of many conductors.  Many with whom I’ve worked have declared that it is the ‘sound’ of the choir that is most important to them.  The digitization of all things artistic is pervasive as if a sample of a sound were really a sound.  And could it be that we really have come to believe that musicmaking is about a sound?  I reckon that what appears to me to be the prevailing lack of ‘sense’ with respect to musicmaking (performance) and its sharing with the listener (audience), has to do with a lack of self confidence in one’s musicianship (‘sense’).  And I concur that it hardly matters with whom one has studied or what refinements to technique one has discovered or even the development of (enlarging upon) an old vision of the music if it is done only from the chin up.  Is it possible that our lifetime assignment is to bring the fullest measure of who we are to each moment’s endeavour?  I wonder what would happen to the spirit (danger!, danger!) and ‘sense’ of musicmaking if each of us were to simply (YIKES!!!) do that? I would always opt for a conductor who’s had a soulful experience with the music being conducted (more than creating a balanced prgram – whatever that is).   Those who are already engaged in the sometimes (often) agonizingly delicious process of  bringing the fullest measure of who they are to musicmaking (and therefore to all of life) need not respond.  Blessings and thanks, Louise Rose, Victoria, BC

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